Donald Trump has had the White House lawn lined with 100 alleged illegal immigrant mugshots. The immigrant mugshots share the alleged crimes the immigrants were arrested. The bizarre lawn ornaments were placed where television crews usually set up to do live shots of the White House. Some of the crimes listed on the immigrant mugshots included murder and sexual offenses. During his presidential campaign, Trump promised mass deportations.
Trump Faces Legal Battles
A crackdown on illegal immigrants has a lot of support even among Democrats, however, there is a lot of skepticism about the way immigrants are being detained and deported. There are now several legal battles over the Trump administration’s deportations. Those battles challenge Trump’s use of his executive power and dispute allegations against some immigrants who have been deported from the country.
Those who oppose the Trump administration say they are skirting due process and deporting legal immigrants. The White House says it has done nothing illegal and that the administration has faced obstacles from judges overreaching their power.
Immigrant Mugshots Shared On X
On Monday morning, Deputy Assistant to the President Kaelan Dorr posted an image of the immigrant mugshots on the White House Lawn on X. “White House lawn looks a little different this AM. And they say yard signs don’t win elections…” Dorr posted. Later in the day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a video of the immigrant mugshots on X.
The official White House logo was placed at the bottom of the immigrant mugshots. That afternoon, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan gave a briefing. During the briefing, he said that he had worked under six presidents on the border and that the border had never been so secure.
He went on to state that there had been a large increase in arrests and deportations since Trump moved into the White House. According to Homan, the Trump administration has deported 139,000 immigrants so far.“This is unprecedented success.”
“The border is secure. They’re removing public safety threats and national security threats every day while you’re all sleeping at 2-3 o’clock in the morning,” said Homan. “There are men and women out there enforcing the law to make this country safe again.”
Colorado Sees Immigration Raid
On Saturday, there was a major immigration raid in Colorado, and Trump hailed it and linked it to his administration’s legal fight over the 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, which he has used to speed up deportations. He bragged about the raid on Truth Social.
“A big Raid last night on some of the worst people illegally in our Country — Drug Dealers, Murderers, and other Violent Criminals, of all shapes and sizes, and Judges don’t want to send them back to where they came from,” Trump posted to his Truth Social page. “If we don’t win this battle at the Supreme Court, our Country, as we know it, is FINISHED! It will be a crime-ridden MESS. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Judge Blocked Deportations
In El Paso, U.S. District Judge David Briones temporarily blocked the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act. In his ruling, he wrote, “due process requirements for the removal of non-citizens are long established” under the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
“There is no doubt the Executive Branch’s unprecedented peacetime use of wartime power has caused chaos and uncertainty for individual petitions as well as the judicial branch in how to manage and evaluate the Executive’s claims of Tren de Aragua membership, and the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a whole,” Briones wrote.
