El Salvador to accept US deportees of any nationality: Rubio

El Salvador has offered to accept deportees from the US of any nationality, as well as violent American criminals imprisoned in the United States, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Rubio emphasised that President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”

“He’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentence in the United States, even though they’re US citizens or legal residents,” he said.

Rubio arrived in the capital city of El Salvador on Monday. His visit was intended to press a friendly government to do more to meet the Trump administration’s demands for a major crackdown on immigration.

The development comes a day after Rubio delivered a warning to Panama that unless the government moved immediately to reduce or eliminate China’s presence at the Panama Canal, the US would act to do so.

Migration, however, was the main issue of the day, as it will be for the next stops on his five-nation Central American tour of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic after Panama and El Salvador.

One idea being floated is to negotiate a so-called “safe third country” agreement with El Salvador that would allow for non-Salvadoran migrants in the US to be deported to El Salvador.

Officials have suggested this might be an option for Venezuelan gang members convicted of crimes in the United States should Venezuela refuse to accept them.

When asked about such an agreement, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said they were finalising one and that it would be announced by Rubio.

Bukele emphasised that it was a broad agreement “that does not have precedent in the history of the relationship, not just of the United States with El Salvador but rather, I think, in Latin America.”

Human rights activists have warned, however, that El Salvador lacks a consistent policy for the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees and that such an agreement might not be limited to violent criminals.

Manuel Flores, the secretary-general of the leftist opposition party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, criticised any such plan, saying it would signal that the region is Washington’s “backyard to dump the garbage.”

With inputs from AP