Trump is enthusiastic about transferring dangerous criminals to El Salvador: 'If we can get them out, I would be very happy'

Donald Trump is seriously considering moving some dangerous U.S. prisoners to El Salvador's "mega-prison," known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot). The president said he would be happy to accept Nayib Bukele's offer, but that White House lawyers should first study the legality of the transfer.

In charge of breaking the news was Marco Rubio, who recently met with Bukele as part of his tour of Central America. "In an act of extraordinary friendship to our country … (El Salvador) has agreed to the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world," he told a group of journalists.

Rubio, who also visited Panama on the aforementioned tour, also explained that Bukele offered to "house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residents."

"It would be a great deterrent"

Hours after Rubio's remarks, Trump himself was asked about it in the Oval Office. The president was enthusiastic about the idea, although he remarked that his legal team should first study the legality of transferring prisoners to other countries, in this case to El Salvador.

"We have horrible criminals, horrible people. (...) If we can get them out of our country, we have other countries that would have take them. Is no difference that our prision sistem except it would be a lot less expensive and tt would be a great deterrent... to send them to other countries," Trump said.

"If we can go a step further, in other words, we are talking about getting the criminals out of our country that come in through other countries illegally. Well, we have people that are just as bad as them. So, if we can get them out, I would be very happy," he added.

Bukele himself also echoed the idea on social media, where he noted that they would only charge a small fee for taking care of the prisoners. "The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable," the Salvadoran president remarked.