President Donald Trump would consider deporting American citizens convicted repeatedly of violent crimes to prisons outside the country if it were legally allowed, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
“It’s a legal question that the president is looking into,” Leavitt said at the press briefing. “He talked about this yesterday with his meeting with [Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele] in the Oval Office. He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.”
During his meeting with Bukele, Trump expressed interest in the idea of deporting American citizens who commit serious, violent crimes, but said that the legality of such a move would have to be further examined.
Legal Standing
According to immigration expert and University of Notre Dame professor Erin Corcoran, the federal government cannot forcibly remove citizens from the country.“There is no provision under U.S. law that would allow the government to kick citizens out of the country,” Corcoran said.
On the other hand, in rare cases, foreign-born citizens can be stripped of citizenship and deported if they commit terrorism or treason, or are found to have lied about their background during the naturalization process.
Since March, El Salvador has accepted more than 200 Venezuelan illegal immigrants accused of gang activity and violent crimes by the Trump administration, and placed them inside the country’s CECOT maximum-security prison for gang members just outside of the capital, San Salvador.
Venezuelan illegal immigrant and gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia was among those deported to CECOT, but critics have argued that his deportation lacked due process.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said that, should El Salvador wish to return Abrego Garcia, the United States would help facilitate his return. Bukele, however, said during his meeting with Trump that the idea of returning the illegal immigrant was “preposterous.”
“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Trump and his top advisers have stated that they have no basis on which to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, arguing that two separate courts have determined him to be a member of the transnational MS-13 criminal gang. The gang has been listed as a terrorist organization by the federal government.
“Abrego Garcia was a foreign terrorist,” Leavitt told reporters during a White House press briefing on April 15. “He is an MS-13 gang member. He was engaged in human trafficking. He illegally came into our country. And so deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, however, say the government didn’t provide any evidence that their client was affiliated with MS-13 or any other gang.
His wife, Jennifer, claimed at a press conference on April 15 that the federal government had “abducted and disappeared” her husband. She said that Abrego Garcia had been an upstanding member of the community.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Tuesday that the United States is expanding its partnership with El Salvador, making the country one of 20 nations whose citizens can apply for Global Entry membership.
