Donald Trump has repeatedly endorsed the idea of sending U.S. citizens to prisons in El Salvador, following a proposal from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, who is jailing dozens of deported Venezuelan immigrants in a notorious prison.
But the president’s desire is plainly illegal. There is no constitutional or statutory authority to exile citizens in foreign prisons, and banishing citizens from the country and incarcerating them abroad amounts to an unconstitutional assault on human rights, according to immigration law experts and constitutional scholars.
