Why are immigrants who the government claims to be gang members could be deported to El Salvador without the right to a legitimate process?
It’s a nightmare scenario immigration advocate, and constitutional law experts were considering it on Monday after President Donald Trump once again pushed for a provocative plan to deport US citizens convicted of unspecified crimes.
Trump discussed the White House issues with El Salvador President Naive Bukere, who agreed to leave people deported from the US in the White House.
“We have to follow the law all the time, but there are also homemade criminals who push people into the subway. It’s an absolute monster that hit an elderly woman at the back of her head with a baseball bat while not watching,” Trump told reporters. “I want to include them.”
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Last week, White House spokesman Caroline Leavitt said Trump was interested in deporting “hirrested and violent criminals” who are American citizens in El Salvador “if there was a legal path to doing that.”
It is unclear whether the government refers only to naturalized citizens. In rare cases, naturalized citizens can revoke their citizenship if they obtain it, for example, through fraudulent means.
At a White House meeting on Monday, Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondy was “studying the law.”
The White House and the Department of Justice did not respond to messages seeking additional information about the proposal.
“We are a great source of energy,” said Ilya Somin, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Immigration laws that empower governments to support people don’t simply apply to U.S. citizens, pointed out Emma Winger, an attorney for the nonprofit advocacy group, the American Council of Immigration.
Anthony Kreis, a professor at Georgia State University’s Faculty of Law, noted that the UK’s policy of eliminating certain criminals from colonies that are being tried elsewhere is one of the leading frustrations of the American Revolution.
Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker in Maryland, was illegally deported to an infamous prison in El Salvador. Trump administration officials emphasized that he is a citizen of El Salvador and that the United States has no say in his future.
“I don’t know how much it is permissible to expel someone as part of a bundle of fundamental rights to citizenship. In a double-layered case, an effort to accommodate American citizens abroad means handing over people to foreign authority,” he added.
David Beer, an immigration expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump’s comments indicate that “it is absolutely crucial for the court to immediately stop this extrajudicial imprisonment on foreign representatives.”
“U.S. citizens may not be deported to be imprisoned overseas. U.S. laws do not have that authority,” he added.
The US government claims that those sent to El Salvador are members of violent gangs, but some are sent without the ability to determine whether they were correctly identified, raising serious constitutional issues.
In one case, if it arises from Trump’s efforts to invoke wartime laws known as the alien enemy law, the Supreme Court has already ruled that those subject to such deportation have the right to a legitimate process.
In another opinion in that case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor addressed some extreme nature of government debate.
“The meaning of the government’s position is that not only non-citizens, but also American citizens can be driven out of the streets, pushed out onto planes and limited to foreign prisons.
The parallel legal dispute over Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a Department-sanctioned immigrant, also relates to the proposal to be mistakenly deported by El Salvador and deported US citizens.
Abrego Garcia has not been charged or convicted of a US or Salvador crime and has now been foamed into El Salvador before the court intervenes, allowing him to establish his due process rights. The government claims he is a member of the MS-13 gang.
The judge ordered Abrego Garcia to be returned, but the Trump administration now says he is outside their jurisdiction and that the decision on whether he was returned is only in El Salvador.
Bukel said he wouldn’t do that on Monday.
The Supreme Court also said that while the government is obliged to “promote” the return of Abrego Garcia, the court could not violate the president’s authority to implement foreign policy.
If that logic applies to American citizens, they could potentially be deported immediately without being able to challenge it. Trump says he just wants to target criminals, but there is no reason why the government can treat others who have not been convicted of the same crime.
“The US government has already been illegally deported to this prison and has not argued for a request to get them back, so the court must close the wreck of this unconstitutional train before US citizens get caught up in the illegal manner,” Bea said.
In the United States, prisoners still have basic constitutional rights and often challenge their beliefs and conditions of confinement. If they are detained in prisons abroad, it is unclear whether they have such rights.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem said at a Phoenix event that Bukere told her that those who were sent to prisons in El Salvador “will never leave.”
Trump’s plan is “an additional reason why courts must force Abrego Garcia and others to illegally deport prisons in El Salvador,” the law professor said.
Megan Lebowitz, Didi Martinez and Katherine Doyle contributed.
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