GUATEMALA CITY >> President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was exploring whether he can move forward with El Salvador’s offer to accept and jail violent American criminals in the “most severe cases” even as he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both say it raises clear legal issues.

Rubio reached an unusual agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a day earlier that the Central American country would accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.

“I’m just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I don’t know if we do or not, we’re looking at that right now.”

Hours earlier at a news conference in San Jose with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves, Rubio said there were “obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution.”

Rubio noted that it was “a very generous offer. No one’s ever made an offer like that — and to outsource, at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States.”

Rubio discussed immigration with Chaves — a Trump administration priority — as America’s top diplomat also faces major upheaval at the U.S. Agency for International Development that has left many at the aid agency and the State Department fearful for their jobs.

While Rubio has been on a five-country visit in Central America this week, USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers were blocked from its Washington headquarters Monday after Elon Musk, who is running a budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the aid agency.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down after Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance after taking office. Rubio later offered a waiver for life-saving programs, but confusion over what is exempt from stop-work orders — and fear of losing U.S. aid permanently — is still freezing aid and development work globally.