The Trump administration is looking to deport people to prisons in more countries in addition to its standing deal with El Salvador.
“I say this unapologetically, we are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday at a Cabinet meeting.
“Not just El Salvador,” Rubio continued. “We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.’”
The proposal would apply to migrants who have criminal records, but the Trump administration has already mistakenly deported a man with no convictions, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador and refused to return him.
Rubio didn’t name any countries specifically, but he did assert, “the further away from America, the better.”
CNN reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources, that the Trump administration has discussed the possibility with officials in Libya and Rwanda.
Additionally, they’ve also discussed a “safe third country agreement,” which would transport asylum-seekers taken into custody at the U.S. border to Libya.
State Department officials met with Libyan officials earlier this week.
Earlier this month, the U.S. deported Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee, to Rwanda.
Previously, Rwanda had an agreement with the U.K. under which asylum-seekers were sent to the East African country, but British Prime Minister Keir Starmer shut the program down in 2024.
CNN also reported that other countries were in talks with the US, but it’s unclear which.
The new details come as Trump vilifies immigrants as dangerous criminals — though data shows many people targeted for deportation don’t have any serious criminal history.
He invoked the controversial Alien Enemies Act in March, successfully sending more than 200 Venezuelan men to an infamous prison in El Salvador, and potentially more in the future. The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the mega maximum security prison where most of the deportees have been sent, is known as a one-way destination for those who are locked up there.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the men they sent to El Salvador were criminals and gang members, though in multiple cases, family members and lawyers say the men were simply targeted because they have tattoos. Among those Trump has deported are 30-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia and a 20-year-old man named in court only as Cristian.
Judges have ordered the return of both Abrego Garcia and Cristian, but both remain in El Salvador. Trump’s deportations are also at the center of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims that the administration is not giving people “adequate notice” before deporting them, violating a Supreme Court order.
The State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.