WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that he wants to send criminal US citizens to foreign jails and “get these animals out of our country” — after El Salvador’s president made the offer to Secretary of State Marco Rubio a day earlier.
“Frankly, they can keep them,” Trump, 78, told reporters in the Oval Office, citing New York City subway shovers as one example of the sort of offender who he’d like to ship off to countries that are known for harsh handling of felons.
“We have hard, hardened criminals, horrible people. You see him pushing people into subways. The train is coming — last week, a guy is walking around, just sees somebody waiting for a train. Train’s coming 40 miles an hour, and he gets pushed into the subway,” Trump said.
“And that happens all the time. These are sick people. If we could get them out of our country, we have other countries that would take them. It’s no different than a prison system, except it would be a lot less expensive and it would be a great deterrent send them to other countries.”
Trump claimed there would be “a very small fee compared to what we pay private prisons.”
The newly inaugurated president said that the idea would pair well with his ongoing effort to deport illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of crimes.
“We’re talking about getting the criminals out of our country that come in through other countries illegally, right? The illegal migrants, as I call them? Well, we have people that are just as bad as them in our country. If we could get them out, I’d be very happy,” Trump said.
“If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat. I don’t know if we do or not. We’re looking at that right now.
“But we could make deals where we’d get these animals out of our country.”
Trump said that such a plan would only apply to “the most severe cases.”
“You call them hardened criminals. They’ve been in jail 40 times … And every time the person gets out, it’s [always] a he, every time he gets out, he commits another crime within 24 hours. And it’s a heinous crime. It’s a rough crime. We don’t want these people in our country either,” Trump said.
“Frankly, they could keep them, because these people are never going to be any good. That person that has been 32 times or 22 times or 17 times and is all in for manslaughter and everything else and only gets out because of a very weak judicial system that only goes after people like Trump. They don’t go after the criminals.”
The president said the plan would result in “a lot less crime automatically.”
“I watched that guy on tape pushing the man into the subway last week. That man that did that is a real bad guy. Many arrests, and you think you’re going to convince him someday to be good and a wonderful, wonderful citizen for our country? It is never going to happen. I want to get those people out,” Trump said. “I’d love to get them out along with the illegal migrants.”
