Even President Donald Trump’s congressional allies doubt the administration has the authority to send U.S. citizens who commit crimes to prisons overseas.
Last month, the president floated the idea of sending “homegrowns” to foreign prisons, such as El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where the administration has placed undocumented immigrants, and even those with legal status,
But that suggestion amounts to deporting U.S. citizens, which is illegal.
Even Trump’s allies in the Senate agree that the president probably could not carry out that agenda.
“I’m not sure that would be constitutional. You’re talking about American citizens? I doubt that would hold up as something constitutional,” Senator Ron Johnson told The Hill.
Constitutional experts previously told The Independent that there was no constitutional or statutory authority to send citizens to foreign prisons. If anything, sending citizens to foreign jails would violate the Constitution’s human rights protections.
Senator Rand Paul similarly told The Hill, “I can’t imagine you can deport a citizen. I don’t think you can incarcerate a citizen in another country, either.”
Senator Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Trump either has the authority to do it, “or it isn’t going to happen.”
“But it sounds to me like you can’t deport citizens,” Grassley said.
Paul implied that Trump’s statement was just another one of the president’s exaggerated remarks to grab the media’s attention.
“There are a lot of things that are said, over-the-top, for effect that aren’t serious proposals. But I don’t know in this case. I can’t imagine you can deport a citizen and/or incarcerate a citizen outside of the U.S.,” Paul told The Hill.
Trump’s remarks were made last month during a meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has happily taken Salvadoran nationals deported from the U.S. and thrown them in CECOT.
“The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You’ve got to build about five more places,” Trump said.
Bukele responded, “Yeah, we got space.”
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