President Donald Trump acknowledged earlier this month that “homegrowns are next.” Now he refuses to rule out the possibility that US citizens may be deported by mistake.
Despite the controversy surrounding his recent orders to deport green card holders and immigrants without due process, the president appeared to admit in an interview with The Atlantic that accidental deportations of US citizens are not impossible.
When asked what would happen if his administration removed the incorrect person or an American citizen, Trump told the magazine, “Let me tell you that nothing will ever be perfect in this world.”
Trump’s remark about “homegrowns” was directed at El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has refused to assist in the return of Salvadoran father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, despite the fact that US government attorneys admitted his removal to a brutal mega-prison was due to a “administrative” error.
The Trump administration has since reiterated that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang and will not return to the United States.
When asked if he was concerned that he had deported the wrong people, the president replied, “You know, I am not involved in that.” I have a large number of people who do that.” He went on to say, “I believe they are all extremely tough and dangerous people. That is what I would say. And do not forget, they entered the country illegally.”
The president’s comments come after a number of federal judges chastised his administration for failing to provide due process when deporting immigrants.
As recently as Saturday, a district judge in Louisiana stated that a two-year-old US citizen appeared to have been deported to Honduras with “no meaningful process.”
Meanwhile, the administration has initiated removal proceedings against some green card holders, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and activist who claims to have mediated discussions between the school and pro-Palestine protesters last year.
The Trump administration has described him as “pro-Hamas.” After a judge ruled this month that Khalil could be deported, his lawyer stated that his client “was subjected to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent.”
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for ignoring court orders to return planes carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members deported to a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. “I think the judge is horrible,” Trump told The Atlantic.
Weeks earlier, the Supreme Court considered whether the Trump administration could use the law to deport people. In her dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor stated that the government sent “scores” of Venezuelan nationals to foreign prisons “without any due process of law, under the auspices of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law designed for times of war.”
A divided court allowed the administration to continue using the centuries-old law to deport immigrants while the legal challenge is pending, but the majority added that deportees are “entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”
Last week, Trump also stated that due process would take too long and that his administration should have the authority to remove immigrants without trial.
“We are getting them out, and a judge can not say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,'” Trump stated in the Oval Office last week. “The trial will take two years. We will have a very dangerous country if we can not do what we are entitled to.”
A day earlier, he wrote on his Truth Social account: “We cannot give everyone a trial, because doing so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.”
