On Monday, President Donald Trump met with the president of El Salvador. During the meeting, he said that he wanted to deport violent criminals who are United States citizens to El Salvador. Experts say that the move would violate U.S. law. His comments during an Oval Office meeting made it clear that he was serious about attempting to deport naturalized citizens to another country. Civil rights activists were alarmed by his comments and said that the move would be unconstitutional.
Trump Looking Into If Move Is Legal
Trump would later add that he would only move forward with the deportation plan if his administration deemed the move legal. Trump did not make it clear what amount of due process a U.S. citizen would receive before being deported to El Salvador.
“We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” Trump said during his Oval Office meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
“I’d like to include in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” Trump added. During Trump’s first presidency, his administration was accused of serious human rights abuses. Including housing migrants in unsanitary detention centers.
Laws Prohibit Deporting Citizens
Laws prohibit the U.S. government from forcibly removing citizens from the country for any reason. However, in extremely rare cases foreign-born citizens can be stripped of their U.S. citizenship and deported, but only if they commit treason or an act of terrorism. They can also be deported if it is discovered that they committed an act of terrorism or treason or are found to have lied about their background while going through the naturalization process.
Erin Corcoran, a University of Notre Dame professor and immigration law expert recently said, “There is no provision under U.S. law that would allow the government to kick citizens out of the country.”
El Salvador Is Open To The Idea
Last week, Trump told reporters that he “loved” the idea of deporting citizens to El Salvador. The President of El Salvador replied by telling him that the country was “open to housing U.S. prisoners.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary confirmed at the two presidents met at the White House that the proposal was not currently on the table and that Trump was simply floating the idea of sending citizens to El Salvador.
Trump was asked by reporters if was really weighing sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador and he did not back away from the idea. “What do you think, there’s a special category of person?” he said.
“If they’re criminals and if they hit people with baseball bats over their head that happen to be 90 years old and if — if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah, yeah, that includes them,” he said. “They’re as bad as anybody that comes in.”
U.S. Paid El Salvador $6 million
Hundreds of migrants who have been accused of having criminal affiliations to El Salvador have been sent by the Trump administration to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador. The prison is often referred to as a Terrorism Confinement Center. The United States has paid El Salvador over $6 million to detain immigrants.
