President Donald Trump said Sunday that he does not know if he has to uphold the constitution to fulfill his campaign promise to continue his mass deportations and crack down on America’s immigration problem.
Speaking to NBC News’ “Meet the Press”, the President said his mass deportations may take precedence over giving immigrants the right to due process, which is required by courts, under the Constitution.
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. It does not say that person must be a U.S. citizen.
When host Kristen Welker tried to point out the Fifth Amendment, Trump suggested that the process would slow him down.
“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said. “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”
“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he added.
Trump is incorrect. At hearings, the immigrants would appear before an immigration judge — which are not part of the judicial branch — they are employees of the Justice Department.
A key part of Trump’s agenda has been the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history as he called it on the campaign trail.
The Supreme Court has already ruled in three different decisions that the administration has to allow basic due process rights for immigrants.
“I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked again. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
