President Donald Trump said he’s not sure if non-U.S. citizens deserve due process, suggesting that allowing migrants to have the trials provided under the Fifth Amendment could slow his deportation efforts.
“I don’t know,” Trump said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether non-citizens should get due process. “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. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”
The Trump administration has been defiant in the face of what officials say are “activist judges” who stand in the way of rapid deportation efforts. It has deported some migrants, specifically Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, without allowing them to fight their removal in court, but judges have blocked the administration from carrying out some deportations under the wartime law.