State senator suggests Utah could save money by housing prisoners in El Salvador

SALT LAKE CITY — A Republican state senator floated the idea that Utah could save money by “outsourcing” the housing of prisoners to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador but later said he’s not pursuing it as a serious idea.

El Salvador’s notorious maximum-security prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, has been at the center of political debate as the Trump administration has sent alleged gang members to the prison under a 1798 wartime law — including a Maryland resident the administration admitted was deported in error.

The Terrorism Confinement Center is known for its harsh conditions — where inmates are not allowed to have visitors, recreation or education — and Salvadoran officials have said those confined there would not return to their communities. The U.S. has a $6 million contract with El Salvador to hold accused gang members, and President Donald Trump said earlier this month he would like to deport some U.S. citizens accused of violent crimes to the prison.

In a social media post Sunday, Utah state Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, appeared to suggest that the state could save money by entering a similar contract with El Salvador, writing that housing a federal prisoner in the U.S. costs about $80,000 per year, compared to only $20,000 per year in El Salvador.

“Outsourcing prisoner housing is an innovative way to control costs,” McCay wrote on X. “If we can solve any extradition issues, perhaps Utah could do some outsourcing.”

McCay responded to one comment asking if he was joking by saying such a policy is “probably” a bad idea “for most prisoners,” but added: “However, I do like this option for people with longer than 20 year sentences, death row inmates, and I would throw pedophiles in for good measure.”

Housing a federal prisoner costs:

US: $80K/year
El Salvador: $20K/year

Outsourcing prisoner housing is an innovative way to control costs. If we can solve any extradition issues, perhaps Utah could do some outsourcing. pic.twitter.com/vciqE41YE4

— Daniel McCay (@danmccay) April 20, 2025

McCay’s legislative colleague, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, responded, saying: “Let’s do it.”

In another response, McCay said he’s “really curious about the boundaries of the incarceration policy the Trump admin is pursuing with MS-13,” referring to a Salvadoran gang that is designated as a foreign terrorist organization. “I love unique questions of law but not every appreciates the thinking.”

McCay told KSL.com he was simply floating the question about the legality of detaining prisoners abroad and does not want to see the policy implemented but declined to comment further.

Constitutional experts have raised concerns about Trump’s willingness to incarcerate Americans abroad and Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and constitutional scholar with the libertarian Cato Institute, told KSL.com efforts by Utah to house prisoners in other countries would likely violate constitutional rights.

Americans have a right to be in the country, Somin said, and can only be stripped of citizenship “in a few very unusual circumstances” — possibly if a citizen was an enemy combatant in a war. States, however, can’t strip U.S. citizenship from residents, he added.

The Eighth Amendment‘s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments” would also likely preclude any efforts to imprison Americans at the Terrorism Confinement Center.

“Conditions in the Salvadoran prison are so awful that if it was in the U.S., there’s an argument that it would violate the Eighth Amendment to imprison people there, even if the location was in the United States,” Somin said.

Another barrier is the First Step Act, a 2018 law signed by Trump that states federal prisoners be placed “in a facility as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence.”

“If you look at the map, El Salvador is not within 500 miles of anywhere in the United States,” Somin said.

And although some areas in southwestern Utah are within 500 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, federal prisoners from the state would likely need to be housed near the border, and the U.S. would need cooperation from Mexican officials.

“We’re talking of hypotheticals on top of hypotheticals,” Somin said. “They’re fairly unlikely to happen.”

The 500-mile requirement applies only to federal prisoners, but even housing those in Utah custody overseas would be abnormal. Utah’s Department of Corrections does occasionally agree to house prisoners in other states as part of the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision — usually in high-profile cases where a prisoner might be at risk of harm in Utah’s prison system — but does not outsource confinement to foreign countries, according to department spokesman Glen Mills.

Even with the barriers preventing U.S. citizens from being sent overseas, the Trump administration has said it lacks jurisdiction to return the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador — which makes proposals to move prisoners overseas concerning, according to Somin.

“If that principle stands up, then they could potentially detain people indefinitely — even past their sentences and so on — and this is another reason why this kind of proposal is dangerous,” he said. “In addition to legal or moral or constitutional objections, there is this issue of you end up with sort of an unaccountable power of detention by outsourcing the detention to a foreign government.”

Related: ICE detaining immigrants on probation during court-ordered check-ins