As Donald Trump welcomed El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to the Oval Office, the Republican whispered to his guest about one of his apparent priorities. The audio is a little difficult to hear, but the Republican clearly said that “homegrown criminals are next,” adding that El Salvador will have to build “about five more places.”
Bukele was amenable, telling his host, “Yeah, we have space.” (It's space Bukele also intends to use to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia imprisoned, despite the fact that he was sent to El Salvador in error.)
Given the larger context, there was no great mystery as to what the two were discussing: The Trump administration has already sent alleged criminals to a Salvadoran prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), and that total is apparently increasing. It was against this backdrop that Trump said “homegrown criminals are next.”
Soon after, with reporters in the room, the American president echoed the sentiment, on camera and unprompted.
After saying the administration intended to “obey the laws,” Trump added, “But we also have homegrown criminals” whom he considers “absolute monsters.” The Republican concluded, “I’d like to include them in the group of people to get out of the country.”
If the rhetoric sounded at all familiar, it’s because the American president has been leaning into the idea quite a bit lately.
In fact, it was just eight days ago when Trump declared that he would “love” to send American inmates to El Salvador’s mega-prison. Soon after, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he wasn’t kidding, and suggested this was an idea his administration was taking seriously.
A few weeks earlier, Trump also published an item to his social media platform, musing about sending American citizens to a prison in El Salvador if they’re convicted of vandalizing Tesla vehicles.
In January, roughly a week into his second term, the Republican made related comments, suggesting that the United States might be willing to pay a “small fee” to foreign countries to imprison American criminals. He repeated the sentiment, using nearly identical phrasing, in early February.
In other words, this was not a passing thought. The incumbent American president appears increasingly fixated on the idea.
For the record, as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained, the policy Trump keeps referencing is plainly illegal. What’s more, it’s entirely unnecessary: There is already a system in place to deal with “absolute monsters” who commit awful crimes. It’s called the criminal justice system. People are charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned by way of this system all the time.
What Trump apparently prefers is a different kind of model in which American citizens who commit violent crimes are, for all intents and purposes, deported to foreign detention facilities.
The more the president pushes this line, the more it becomes necessary to take the threat seriously.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
