The White House is exploring the legality of sending U.S. citizens who committed crimes to El Salvador despite experts saying such a move would be unconstitutional.
During a briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the administration believes it has the power to deport U.S. citizens or if it would have to change laws to do so. Leavitt answered that it is a "legal question that the president is looking into."
Q: Can you explain how it would be legal to deport Americans to El Salvador?
— FactPost (@factpostnews) April 15, 2025
Leavitt: We're looking at it pic.twitter.com/EXSiKxqRhr
The possibility is dominating headlines after President Donald Trump told Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele during a meeting at the White House that he should build more prisons for "homegrown criminals" because they "are next." Bukele has taken in hundreds of U.S. deportees and is holding them in its CECOT mega prison.
Bukele offered to detain more criminals, including U.S. citizens, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing the proposal as a generous one, highlighting the high costs of keeping prisoners in American jails. Trump also publicly declared he was "all for" deporting violent criminals, even if they are U.S. citizens.
"They're as bad as anybody that comes in," Trump said. "We have bad ones too, and I'm all for it because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security," he added.
The Trump administration is already paying Bukele $6 million to detain more than 200 undocumented immigrants with alleged gang ties in CECOT. Human rights advocates argue that most of the migrants sent to El Salvador do not have a criminal record.
Various stories of men targeted solely because of their tattoos, including a Maryland father who was mistakenly sent to CECOT, have caused public uproar about the lack of due process being offered to detainees. Bot The White House and Bukele have refused to release him despite a Supreme Court ruling requiring the former to do so.
But looking at U.S. citizens specifically, legal experts say it is without a doubt "unconstitutional," even in the case of violent criminals. "A North American citizen born in the United States cannot be deported or expelled due to protections provided by the 14th Amendment in the Constitution," immigration attorney Claudia Bernal told Telemundo. Moreover, Axios noted that the Eight Amendment bars "cruel and unusual" punishments.
Constitutional lawyer Joseph Malouf added that a U.S. citizen prisoner could only be taken to a foreign prison if he were to agree to serve his sentence abroad. Otherwise, "it wouldn't be legal to remove them against their will."
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