U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to watch people board a repatriation flight bound for Colombia, at Albrook Airport in Panama City, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says El Salvador’s President has offered to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality as well as violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.
President Nayib Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Mr. Rubio said.
“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 U.S. citizens or legal residents.”
Mr. Rubio was visiting El Salvador on Monday (February 3, 2025) to press a friendly government to do more to meet Mr. Trump’s administration demands for a major crackdown on immigration amid turmoil in Washington over the status of the government’s main foreign development agency.
Mr. Rubio arrived in San Salvador shortly after watching a U.S.-funded deportation flight with 43 migrants leave from Panama for Colombia. That came a day after Mr. Rubio delivered a warning to Panama that unless the government moved immediately to reduce or eliminate China’s presence at the Panama Canal, the U.S. would act to do so.
Migration, though, 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.
President Donald Trump’s administration prioritizes stopping people from making the journey to the United States and has worked with regional countries to boost immigration enforcement on their borders as well as to accept deportees from the United States.
One idea being floated is to negotiate a so-called “safe third country” agreement with El Salvador that would allow for non-Salvadorean migrants in the U.S. 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 finalizing one and it would be announced by Mr. Rubio. Mr. Bukele said 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, criticized any such plan, saying it would signal that the region is Washington’s “backyard to dump the garbage.”
The deportation flight Mr. Rubio watched being loaded in Panama City was carrying migrants detained by Panamanian authorities after illegally crossing the Darien Gap from Colombia. The State Department says such deportations send a message of deterrence. The U.S. has provided Panama with financial assistance to the tune of almost $2.7 million in flights and tickets since an agreement was signed to fund them.
Mr. Rubio was on the tarmac for the departure of the flight, which was taking 32 men and 11 women back to Colombia. It’s unusual for a Secretary of State to personally witness such a law enforcement operation, especially in front of cameras.
“Mass migration is one of the great tragedies in the modern era,” Mr. Rubio said, speaking afterward in a nearby building. “It impacts countries throughout the world. We recognize that many of the people who seek mass migration are often victims and victimized along the way, and it’s not good for anyone.”
Published – February 04, 2025 08:10 am IST
