US President Donald Trump on Monday proposed deporting hardened criminals who are American citizens to prisons in El Salvador, during a meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House.

“Home-growns are next. You gotta build about five more places,” Trump said while seated with Bukele in the Oval Office. He added, “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. We’re studying the laws.”

Trump eyes overseas incarceration to cut costs

The President praised El Salvador’s prison infrastructure and claimed housing criminals abroad would be more cost-effective.

“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 said, endorsing further cooperation with Bukele’s government.

Trump later added, “We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters.”

Legal hurdles in deporting US citizens

Under current US law, citizens—natural-born or naturalized—cannot be deported, except in rare cases involving denaturalization for crimes like terrorism, treason, or immigration fraud. Trump acknowledged this challenge, saying his administration is still “looking at the laws” to determine feasibility.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the President had “simply floated” the idea.

Bukele boasts of El Salvador’s transformation

Bukele, whose administration has garnered global attention for mass incarceration of suspected gang members, said El Salvador is now “the safest country in the hemisphere,” a dramatic shift from its past as the “murder capital of the world.”

Trump praised the Central American leader’s efforts, calling the prisons “great facilities,” and reiterated his interest in expanding U.S.-El Salvador cooperation on criminal justice.

Ongoing US payments for illegal immigrant detentions

The US is currently paying El Salvador $6 million to detain migrants accused of gang affiliations in its mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center. More than 200 migrants were recently deported to the facility.