President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox Noticias, airing Tuesday, that he’s open to sending violent American criminals to El Salvador prisons.
“He’s made it a very safe place,” Trump said of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, whom he welcomed to the White House on Monday. “People go, and they feel very secure and safe. He’s also built one but also other prisons. Very big ones, and we’re using his system because we’re getting rid of our criminals from out of the United States that were allowed to come in by Biden.”
“We’re getting them out, and the president is helping us with that — President Bukele. So, I was very impressed with him, very, very impressed,” Trump added.
When asked by Fox’s Rachel Campos-Duffy if the prison could be used for “our own violent criminals,” Trump replied that it was possible, saying it could be implemented for what he referred to as “homegrown” offenders.
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President Donald Trump speaks with Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy for a Fox Noticias interview on April 14, 2025. (Fox News)
“The ones that grew up and something went wrong, and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat, and push people into subways just before the train gets there, like you see happening sometimes,” Trump said. “We are looking into it, and we want to do it. I would love to do that.”
The Trump administration has been coordinating with Bukele on deportation flights, and sending hundreds — including alleged Tren de Aragua gang members — to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
The prison is at the center of a dispute involving deported El Salvadoran national and illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. While some officials acknowledged in court filings that he was mistakenly deported, top Trump figures like advisor Stephen Miller maintain it was not a mistake. Miller and Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday that courts had said he was a member of the transnational terrorist group MS-13, although he has not been formally charged with being part of the notorious gang.
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Trump’s 2024 campaign was critical of the Biden administration’s catch-and-release border policies, as well as liberal bail reform laws in many Democratic jurisdictions that forced police to release suspects back onto the streets, often to reoffend.
Trump has praised Bukele for taking custody of “violent alien enemies” of both the U.S. and the world, in an agreement struck between the two countries. Bukele has worked to lower crime rates in El Salvador, which was previously notoriously known as the “murder capital of the world,” although his methods have attracted criticism.
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The full interview with Trump will air Tuesday afternoon on Fox Noticias at 4 p.m. ET.
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
