Ex-Blackwater CEO’s new pitch for Trump 'could be a precursor to deporting US citizens'

11 April

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, attends a police and military presentation, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 5, 2025. REUTERS/Santiago Arcos

Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and defense contractors are aiming to cash in on deportations to a Central American prison/holding facility.

Prince — the brother of President Donald Trump's former education secretary, Betsy DeVos — hopes his proposal can skirt U.S. immigration laws by designating a section of a sprawling El Salvadoran prison as American territory, Politico reported. Proposed new language claiming “transferring a prisoner to such a facility would not be an Extradition nor a Deportation” raises the specter of deporting U.S. citizens to offsite facilities because "deportation" may only qualify as a "transfer." Politico's Dasha Burns and Myah Ward noted that Prince's proposal "could be a precursor to deporting U.S. citizens" even though the facility is initially only for holding undocumented immigrants.

Trump has already floated plans to deport U.S. citizens.

The facility, which has already drawn accusations of violence and overcrowding from human rights groups, could receive thousands more immigrants from facilities in the U.S. There is no word on how accessible the expanded Central American prison would be to immigrant defense attorneys and affected families, however.

It is unclear how seriously the White House is considering Prince’s plan.

A shooting incident in Nisour Square left 17 Iraqi citizens dead, allegedly at the hands of four Blackwater guards, nearly two decades ago. Intense government investigations, scrutiny, private security reform and criminal charges ensued. In 2014, an American jury found the Blackwater guards guilty of various criminal charges, from murder to weapons offenses.

Trump pardoned Blackwater contractors jailed for the massacre in 2020.

The facility is pitched as a holding pen for “criminal illegal aliens,” but the administration has made it clear that the only criminality necessary for arrest and deportation to an offsite prison is being on U.S. soil.

“[B]ecause they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes,” said Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in January.

Most immigrants swept up within the last two months do not have criminal records in the United States.

Read the full POLITICO article at this link.

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