Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to say whether President Donald Trump’s plan to deport American citizens to a Salvadoran prison is legal.
During an interview with Fox News, host Jesse Watters asked if Trump’s “musings” about sending Americans to CECOT, the notorious prison complex where inmates sleep on bare metal racks and are kept in their cells 23.5 hours per day, is “legal.”
Bondi refused to answer.
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“Jesse, these are Americans he is saying who have committed the most heinous crimes in our country,” she said. “Crime is going to decrease dramatically because he has given us a directive to make America safe again.”
Legal experts told NBC News the idea was “obviously illegal.”
Trump and his administration officials have nevertheless floated the plan several times over the past week. The U.S. is paying El Salvador about $6 million per year to jail about 240 Venezuelans and a handful of Salvadorans, and on Monday, Trump met with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
“Homegrown criminals next,” Trump whispered to Bukele as they entered the Oval Office.
“I said homegrowns the next,” he added, raising his voice. “The homegrowns. You got to build about five more places.”
Later during their meeting, Trump told reporters that Bondi was “studying the law” to figure out how to deport Americans accused of crimes.
“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 told reporters. “I’d like to include them.”
Deporting Americans clearly violates their fundamental rights as U.S. citizens, according to legal experts. In fact, Americans who were wrongly deported have successfully sued the government for damages.
For all of Trump’s talk of “obeying the laws,” when it comes to CECOT, the administration has ignored judicial ruling after judicial ruling—including an order from the Supreme Court.
The court ruled unanimously last week that the administration needed to take steps to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father of three with legal protective status who was deported to CECOT because of an “administrative error.”
Despite admitting the mistake, the administration has refused to bring him home.
Originally, officials tried to claim he was a member of the MS-13 gang, but during legal proceedings, the Department of Justice failed to present any evidence showing gang affiliations. Eventually, the government dropped its position that he was a “danger to the community,” a federal appeals court found.
Abrego Garcia worked as a full-time sheet metal apprentice and union member.
“His attorneys are saying he’s not affiliated with a gang. They’re wrong, and he has no right to be [in the U.S.] but for an extra step in paperwork,” Bondi told Watters.
In fact, a judge would need to rule that Abrego Garcia was no longer eligible for protection, which he received after proving in court that he had been targeted by gangs back in El Salvador because of his family’s papusa business.
“President Bukele does not want to give him back to the United States, nor do we want him back,” Bondi added, while Watters laughed.
Sean McGarvey, the president of the building trade unions association, disagreed.
“We’re not red, we’re not blue. We’re the building trades. The backbone of America,” McGarvey said during a speech last week.
“You want to build a $5 billion data center, want more six-figure careers with health care and retirement and no college debt? You don’t call Elon Musk, you call us. North America’s Building Trades Unions. And yeah, that means all of us all. All of us. Including our brother, SMART apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now,” he continued, smacking the lectern.
“Bring him home!” he said as the union’s members stood up and applauded.
In the meantime, it’s not clear whether the Venezuelans being held at CECOT are there legally either. Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act—which applies only when the U.S. is officially at war with a foreign government—to justify deporting alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang.
But last month a federal judge temporarily blocked the deportations based on the fact that U.S. wasn’t actually at war. In any case, sending Venezuelans to CECOT, which is located in a third-party country, is legally suspect considering the documented human rights abuses that take place there, experts told NPR.
The Trump administration has nevertheless tried to justify the deportations by claiming the deportees are violent criminals and a threat to American safety.
But an investigation from 60 Minutes found that only 12 of the men sent to CECOT had been accused of violent crimes such as rape, murder or trafficking. About 75 percent of the deportees had no criminal record, while others were accused of non-violent offenses like shoplifting and trespassing.
They included a gay makeup artist, a professional soccer player, and a food delivery driver who were in the U.S. legally seeking asylum but were apparently targeted for deportation because they have tattoos.
The Trump administration, however, says its deal with CECOT is “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and should be expanded.
Referring to Americans, Bondi told Watters, “These people need to be locked up as long as they can, as long as the law allows. We’re not gonna let ‘em go anywhere, and if we have to build more prisons in our country, we will do it.”
“Right. That’s what I thought,” he replied.
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