Current laws “would categorically preclude most U.S. citizens and residents from serving their sentence in El Salvador,” a former U.S. attorney said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees from the US of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.

In a deal offered to the U.S. by El Salvador, American criminals could find themselves imprisoned thousands of miles from home in the small Central American country notorious for its harsh penal conditions.