Republican senators are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s idea of sending U.S. citizens who commit serious crimes to prisons in foreign countries, including the massive Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, saying that would violate the Constitution.
Sen Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Hill that the Supreme Court would likely block the plan, the outlet reported Tuesday.
“You’re talking about American citizens?” he said. “I doubt that would hold up as something constitutional.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, agreed that “it sounds to me like you can’t deport citizens,” but he added that “either he’s got the authority to do it, or it isn’t going to happen.”
During Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s visit to the Oval Office in April, Trump commented that the “homegrowns are next” and told him that he has to “build about five more places.”
The Terrorism Confinement Center, which is known as CECOT, houses 40,000 inmates.
Bukele suggested his country could hold convicted U.S. citizens, telling the president, “Yeah, we got space.”
Bukele said in February that El Salvador is willing to take in convicted criminals, presumably including those from the United States, into CECOT “in exchange for a fee.”
“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he commented.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told The Hill that there would be a “real problem” with sending U.S. citizens to prison in other countries.
“I can’t imagine you can deport a citizen. I don’t think you can incarcerate a citizen in another country, either,” he said.
Paul further said that he could not tell if Trump is serious about his proposal.
“There are a lot of things that are said, over-the-top, for effect, that aren’t serious proposals,” he said. “But I don’t know in this case. I can’t imagine you can deport a citizen and/or incarcerate a citizen outside the U.S.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, when asked about sending prisoners to foreign countries, referred to Trump’s call to reopen the long-shuttered Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary located off the coast of San Francisco as a potential option.
“I thought that’s what Alcatraz was going to be for,” he said, but he did not immediately embrace the call to reopen the notorious prison.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of the suggestion, but I certainly want to have that conversation,” Cornyn said.
Trump repeated the idea of sending U.S. criminals to foreign prisons during his recent interview with Time magazine, stating that he would “love to do that if it were permissible by law. We’re looking into that.”
He said his plan calls for sending away repeat offenders or convicts with long prison sentences.
“We’re talking about career criminals that are horrible people that we house and we have to take care of for 50 years while they suffer because they killed people,” Trump said. “We have crime rates under Biden that went through the roof, and we have to bring those rates down.”
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