Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a team of military contractors are proposing to the White House a plan to greatly increase deportations to El Salvador.
The plan, which calls for the transfer of thousands of people from U.S. detention centers to a maximum-security prison in Central America, will target “criminal illegal immigrants.” To avoid legal disputes, however, Prince and associates suggest designating part of El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, already under the scrutiny of human rights groups, as U.S. territory.
At the moment, it is unclear how seriously the White House is considering Prince’s plan: however, officials with knowledge of the facts said the federal administration has had several contacts with the former Blackwater CEO, and is now considering what to do.
One of the sources, moreover, said he expects the proposal to be discussed during the White House visit of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, scheduled for Monday.
The proposal would put Prince in charge of an extraordinary effort to privatize deportations, including transporting tens of thousands of detainees from U.S. holding cells to prison in El Salvador. To operate in that sector, pending feedback from Washington DC, the former Blackwater CEO this week registered an LLC called 2USV in Wyoming.
This is not the first time the military contractor has tried to get a deal with the government. Just under two months ago, he proposed a program to accelerate mass deportations through the use of a network of “temporary camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes and a “small army” of private citizens authorized to make arrests.
Now, with his new plan, Prince said his team, in cooperation with El Salvadoran authorities, will “collect 100,000 of the worst criminals” from U.S. prisons and deport them aboard planes to Central America’s notorious maximum-security prison.
The military contractor group also said it will need access to government law enforcement immigration records to determine the status of those at risk of being deported, further intertwining private enterprise with government operations.
“This contract will not only solve the legal issues pertaining to removing criminal aliens, it will enhance the government’s capability to locate, capture, detain and deport aliens,” Prince and associates explained.
The team also says it will work with prosecutors to “make deals with incarcerated individuals whereby some of their prison sentence will be waived in exchange for the granting of a deportation order.”
Finally, the program includes a “Treaty of Cession” so that part of El Salvador’s prison complex can become U.S. territory, as “transferring a prisoner to such a facility would not be an Extradition nor a Deportation.”
