Trump considers jailing U.S. criminals in El Salvador

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was mulling over Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's offer to accept and jail violent American criminals in the "most severe cases."

"I'm just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "I don't know if we do or not, we're looking at that right now."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio reached an unusual agreement with Bukele a day earlier that the Central American country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.

Bukele said his country would accept only "convicted criminals" and would charge a fee that "would be relatively low for the United States but significant for El Salvador."