On April 14, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump met with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House. Both leaders explored the controversial idea of sending American citizens to be imprisoned in El Salvador, a proposal that has drawn sharp criticism for being viewed as both dangerous and potentially unconstitutional.
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President Trump announced that his administration is actively considering a plan to detain U.S. citizens by sending them to El Salvador’s prisons. This statement came during a press briefing with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.
“We’ll need to create more facilities for the homegrowns. Five additional locations are necessary,” Trump remarked to Bukele, seemingly indicating the expansion required to accommodate U.S. citizens in El Salvadorian prisons.
The country has recently held hundreds of individuals in a high-security prison, many of whom were flown from the U.S. after being apprehended for suspected gang affiliations or lacking legal status.
Critics allege that many deported individuals were sent back with minimal or no due process, and some even against court rulings from U.S. judges.
When responding to Trump’s remarks, Bukele affirmed that El Salvador is ready to house American citizens. “We have sufficient space,” stated the president.
The proposal has been met with outrage from legal experts across the board, who contend it represents an unprecedented violation of U.S. citizens’ civil rights.
“It’s undeniably unconstitutional and illegal. U.S. law offers no authority for deporting citizens, let alone imprisoning them abroad,” stated David Bier from the Cato Institute, a D.C.-based libertarian think tank.
“The issue lies in the fact that Trump has already deported numerous individuals unlawfully by denying the judicial system an opportunity to intervene,” Bier continued. “The genuine concern now is his potential attempt to circumvent judicial oversight in deporting U.S. citizens.”
Alleged gang members are seen inside a cell at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) situated in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, April 04, 2025. The center has been utilized by the Trump administration as part of its immigration strategy following the deportation of numerous migrants from the U.S.
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“I’d do it in a heartbeat”
This isn’t a new consideration since Trump’s presidency began. In February, El Salvador’s Bukele mentioned on social media that his country had “provided the opportunity for the United States to outsource part of its prison operations.”
“We are ready to accommodate only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) at our mega-prison in exchange for a fee,” Bukele had said, sharing images of inmates packed closely together.
Elon Musk, a Trump ally, amplified Bukele’s post on the same day, calling the proposal a “Fantastic idea!!” When asked about the concept in February, Trump stated: “I’d do it immediately.”
During the Monday press conference, Trump reaffirmed that he has tasked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi with investigating whether this could be a legal and financially viable method to manage American prisoners.
Trump also suggested his government might contemplate sending U.S. citizens for incarceration in additional countries.
“We have conversations going with others too,” he mentioned. “For homegrown criminals, I’m fine with that. Pam is currently looking into the legalities. If it’s feasible, it will be beneficial.”
“Any of us is vulnerable to basically being kidnapped”
In a Monday appearance on Fox News’ Jessie Waters Primetime, Bondi appeared supportive: “These are Americans that he [President Trump] is indicating have committed the most serious offenses, and crime will plummet significantly.”
However, many legal experts contacted by NPR expressed concerns that this policy proposal would represent a significant deviation in the U.S. government’s treatment of its citizens.
“It is to be hoped that the administration won’t pursue this approach,” stated Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, a progressive think tank at New York University. “There are serious ethical concerns regarding how we treat human beings who are U.S. citizens. Courts are likely to intervene and halt this process.”
Federal agents detain a man as ICE conducts raids on February 24, 2025. The Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants includes individuals in the U.S. with legal status. The administration is now exploring a proposal for the overseas incarceration of American citizens.
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In February, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, sent a letter to the State Department urging the Trump administration to abandon this proposed strategy.
Ossoff highlighted the dire living conditions reported in Salvadoran prisons, where inmates frequently lack proper sanitation, temperature regulation, and even access to clean water.
“It would be a profound moral and legal injustice for the U.S. government to subject anyone to such inhumane conditions,” Ossoff asserted.
The American Civil Liberties Union has also dismissed this idea as legally untenable:
“U.S. citizens cannot be deported, period,” stated ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project, in a February interview with NPR. “The judiciary has consistently ruled against such actions, and they will not permit it to occur.”
Nevertheless, during an April 8 briefing at the White House, spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt indicated that the proposal remains under serious consideration: “The President has talked about this idea publicly and privately on numerous occasions,” she stated.
“He’s mentioned if there’s a legal route to pursue this. It’s uncertain, and we’re exploring it. It’s merely an idea that he’s suggested,” Leavitt elaborated.
Concerns persist among judges and legal experts that the Trump administration may attempt to push forward with this plan notwithstanding legal and constitutional hurdles.
In a recent statement, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested that the administration’s legal assertions regarding deportation cases imply that the U.S. government believes it “could deport and incarcerate anyone, including citizens, without facing legal repercussions, as long as it does so before the court has an opportunity to step in.”
In a conversation with NPR last week, Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor emeritus of constitutional law, voiced a similar caution:
“What that conveys is that literally any of us, regardless of whether we hail from Venezuela or are U.S. born, whether immigrants or citizens, could be taken effectively hostage by masked agents of the U.S. government who fail to disclose the motives for their apprehension, potentially vanishing forever in a dungeon or prison, whether in El Salvador or any other country around the globe,” Tribe remarked.
Conservatives on the sidelines
The U.S. has previously imprisoned citizens in ways that challenge or violate constitutional principles, prominently during World War II when around 120,000 Japanese-Americans were interned and the detention of Jose Padilla, an American accused of terrorism and held without trial in 2002.
However, many legal scholars consulted for this article asserted that deporting U.S. citizens to serve time in foreign prisons would breach a fundamental boundary, effectively stripping them of their constitutional and legal protections.
Additionally, this proposal is on the table at a time when Trump has mentioned “locking up” political adversaries, ordering the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the conduct of opponents.
“We will thoroughly expose their serious crimes and misconduct,” Trump declared during a March 14 address at the DOJ.
Not everyone voices opposition to Trump’s concept of overseas incarceration for citizens.
NPR reached out to three notable conservative legal scholars, all of whom declined to comment. Of three conservative legal think tanks contacted, one declined to comment and two did not respond.
Moreover, no instances were found of GOP lawmakers in the House or Senate voicing opinions on the matter.
Bier from the Cato Institute expressed astonishment at the notable lack of dissent from Republican leaders and within the conservative legal arena regarding Trump’s proposal.
“It’s unfathomable. This reflects the extent to which Donald Trump has steered the Republican Party and the conservative movement in this direction,” he remarked.
