The Trump administration is seeking countries in addition to El Salvador that would be willing to accept people deported from the U.S., Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.
Rubio, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, told reporters that the administration intended to expand its use of foreign prisons as part of a mass deportation program that was initially billed as an effort to focus on removing people with criminal convictions.
“Not just El Salvador,” the secretary of state said. “We are working with other countries to say ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.’”
Rubio did not specify why the U.S. would need to use foreign prisons or which countries the government would consider, though he said “the further away from America, the better.”
President Donald Trump in March seized upon a 1798 law — the Alien Enemies Act — to send about 240 men from Venezuela that the administration asserted were members of a gang known as Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador that is notorious for harsh conditions.
The administration said it sent the men to El Salvador because the Venezuelan government was not readily accepting the return of its citizens from the U.S.
Family members and attorneys of the men have said at least some have no connections to the gang or other criminal background and were not given a reasonable opportunity to challenge the allegations against them in court before they were sent to El Salvador.
“I’m not apologetic about it,” Rubio said. “We are doing that. The president was elected to keep America safe and to get rid of a bunch of perverts and pedophiles and child rapists out of our country.”
Rubio did not mention Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was deported back to his homeland by mistake despite a judge’s order that he be allowed to remain in the U.S.because he faced likely persecution from a gang in his homeland.
Abrego Garcia’s case has touched off a firestorm on Capitol Hill.
Both Trump and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele have brushed aside calls to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., despite an April Supreme Court ruling that the White House must facilitate his return.
Trump in an interview Tuesday acknowledged he could bring Abrego Garcia back, appearing to undermine his administration’s public stance on the case.
Asked Wednesday whether he’d been in contact with officials from El Salvador or made a formal request to return Abrego Garcia, Rubio declined to answer.
“I would never tell you that. And you know who else I’ll never tell? A judge,” Rubio said. “Because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.”