From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly offered payouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The CIA has apparently become the first intelligence agency to offer its employees a way out, as they were reportedly offered a bid to quit their jobs in exchange for roughly eight months of pay and benefits, the outlet reported. Trump administration officials told the outlet that the move is a signal to help those who oppose President Donald Trump’s agenda find other work.

In addition to the offer, the WSJ reported that an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency is freezing its hiring for job seekers with conditional offers, with some expected to be rescinded if the agents don’t have the background necessary for the agency’s new direction.

“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities. These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission,” a CIA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ratcliffe was confirmed as the CIA’s new leader on Jan. 23, after the Senate approved him in a 74-25 vote. In his opening remarks during his confirmation process, Ratcliffe said he would adhere to the CIA’s core mission and focus on threats from the Chinese Communist Party.

“We will collect intelligence — especially human intelligence — in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult,” Ratcliffe said in his testimony. “We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgement or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”

The move from the CIA comes a week after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released an email on Jan. 28, showing that millions of federal employees were offered deferred compensation through Sept. 30, provided they submit their resignation notices by Feb. 6.

“If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce,” the email said.  “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and then-U.S. President Donald Trump, Sept. 25, 2019.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has agreed to imprison convicted criminals from any country that have been ordered deported out of the United States.

The extraordinary offer was made after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Bukele in San Salvador, the country’s capital city, to discuss a range of bilateral issues. The Central American leader not only agreed to take back his own country’s deportees, but also offered his “mega-prison” to house MS-13 members, Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangbangers and any other criminal from around the world — including U.S. citizens. 

The offer could prove crucial for the Trump White House as it moves forward with its detention and deportation operation after the unprecedented border crisis that was sparked during the previous administration. The 8.5 million border encounters that occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Joe Biden’s era resulted in an unprecedented growth of the country’s illegal migrant population.

“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele posted on social media Monday night. “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”

“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he continued.

The State Department confirmed the offer in a statement, adding that the “extraordinary gesture” has never been extended before by any other country.

“President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” said State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. “He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.”

The agreement follows an announcement in January by President Donald Trump that he would be utilizing a section of Guantanamo Bay to detain “the worst criminal illegal aliens.” The president said he would be sending up to 30,000 migrants with deportation orders to the Cuba-based naval base.

Previous administrations have utilized Guantanamo Bay for migrant detention in the past. The Clinton administration processed thousands of Haitians and housed Cuban asylum seekers at the naval base during the 1990s, and the Obama administration considered similar measures after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Biden administration also mulled the idea.

El Salvador, where the international crime syndicate MS-13 has a major presence, has long been plagued with violent crime. However, Bukele has made incredible strides in reducing his country’s crime rate since assuming office in 2019 through a no-nonsense policy of mass incarceration.

The Central American leader oversaw a 70% reduction of the country’s murder rate in 2023. When asked by the Daily Caller News Foundation in February 2024 how the U.S. could reduce crime rates in major cities, Bukele simply said “incarcerate the criminals.”

Sending deportees to El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay potentially solves two major hurdles for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda: recalcitrant countries that refuse to accept their deported citizens back and limited Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention space. Racking up available bed space by the thousands can prevent ICE detention centers from being forced to release illegal migrants back into the community due to overcrowding.

Trump successfully coerced the Colombian president into taking back his county’s deportees after threatening him with stiff tariffs, and the Venezuelan government has also recently agreed to begin accepting their repatriated citizens.

Several high-profile criminal migrants were detained and released at the border before going on to commit heinous crimes in the U.S., such as Laken Riley’s killer Jose Ibarra and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray’s alleged killers. More detention space can potentially help federal immigration authorities avoid releasing illegal migrants from custody.

Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said to the media after meeting with him at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador.

The historic offer from El Salvador immediately followed Rubio’s trip to Panama, in which he successfully prevented the key Central American country from renewing an infrastructure agreement with China, reducing the communist country’s influence in the region.