El Salvador has agreed to accept criminal illegal immigrants of any nationality as the United States works to deport hundreds of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members.
The agreement, announced by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele‘s administration late Monday, is a major victory for the Trump administration amid conflict over getting Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to accept all Venezuelan citizens that the U.S. wishes to send back to the country.
The latest agreement with El Salvador came during a “tremendously successful meeting” between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Bukele in San Salvador, according to State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.
“President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” Bruce said in a statement. “He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.”
Bukele also offered to house in Salvadoran jails U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents convicted of serious crimes.
Coatepeque Lake… pic.twitter.com/4gZmHCepXk
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 4, 2025
Ric Grenell, the Trump administration special presidential envoy for special missions, traveled to Venezuela over the weekend, securing the release of six American hostages and an agreement that Venezuela would specifically accept back Tren de Aragua members.
The gang’s members infiltrated the U.S. during the border crisis and have been associated with violent crimes committed against U.S. citizens, including the aggravated assault and murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) compared El Salvador’s MS-13 to “Boy Scouts” when put up against Tren de Aragua.
Bukele, elected in 2019, signaled to the Trump administration last month that El Salvador was willing to take in deported immigrants from other countries, but likely not without its own incentives to striking a deal, according to current and former senior Department of Homeland Security officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner in late January.
Since Bukele’s election, the country has cracked down on its own gang, MS-13, putting tens of thousands of its members in prison.
The government of El Salvador has opened the world’s largest prison as part of the crackdown, a move Bukele said was the opposite of how the U.S. was “protecting criminals” under former President Joe Biden.
The Rubio-Bukele meeting came just days after the Trump administration rescinded deportation protections that the Biden administration had issued for approximately 600,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. during its final days in office.
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Temporary Protected Status is a designation made every 18 months by the DHS secretary that determines whether a country should be exempt from having its citizens returned because the government is not in a position to accept them due to natural disasters, famine, or war.
In this case, the decision to wipe Venezuela’s TPS signaled that the Trump administration may expect to arrest and remove a large number of Venezuelan citizens despite having said it would prioritize arresting and deporting criminals before general immigration offenders. Immigrants convicted of crimes are not eligible for TPS.