Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) stated President Trump is “exploring the threshold of ignoring a court order” along with his administration’s response to a federal decide who blocked the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to hurry deportations.
“It‘s a very interesting moment because this is what Donald Trump does in life, right? And you see him exploring the threshold of ignoring a court order, knowing … that that is a constitutional crisis,” Himes, a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said during a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
“So they‘re throwing every mad legal theory up against the wall. They‘re dissembling, they‘re taking their time and everything. And I‘ll tell you, we‘ve seen this movie a hundred times before,” he continued.
The Trump administration stated it deported undocumented Venezuelan immigrants presumed to be Tren de Aragua gang members over the weekend, regardless of U.S. District Choose James Boasberg’s order to briefly halt elimination efforts and convey any planes deporting people again to the U.S.
White Home officers have argued Boasberg’s verbal ruling doesn’t maintain the identical authorized weight as a written order.
“If these courts don‘t stand up very quickly and say, we are going to hold individuals in contempt and start doing some of the things that courts can do when they hold individuals in contempt, you can bet that next week the encroachment will be a little bit bigger,” Himes stated.
“And pretty soon this administration will be entirely ignoring court orders also.”
Himes additionally criticized the Trump administration for posting movies of Venezuelan deportees being processed at an El Salvador jail.
“By the way, this is sort of classic Hollywood that is going to last right up until the moment that it is discovered that some innocent person is now, you know, being brutalized in a Salvadoran prison when the blowback that inevitably comes, when you completely ignore due process comes to roost in the form of stories of people being horribly abused, that‘s when the numbers are going to begin to change a little bit, right,” Himes stated.
He added that if the Trump administration is seeking to present credibility to U.S. residents, it might present an inventory of names on these deported.
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to offer names throughout Monday’s briefing with reporters however did present numbers outlining these eliminated.
She stated a complete of 261 individuals had been deported: 137 had been deported below the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, 101 had been eliminated below Title 8 immigration legal guidelines and 23 had been MS-13 gang members. The U.S. paid El Salvador round $6 million to detain the immigrants missing sure documentation.
“It was approximately $6 million, to El Salvador, for the detention of these foreign terrorists,” Leavitt stated. “And I would point out that is pennies on the dollar in comparison to the cost of life, and the cost it would impose on the American taxpayer to house these terrorists in maximum security prisons here in the United States of America.”
White Home deputy press secretary Harrison Fields additionally slammed Himes for his feedback.
“Rep. Jim Himes is an apologist for violent criminal aliens whom President Trump was elected to deport immediately. This is not only poor politics but also typical of Democrats, who would rather support open borders and allow anarchy on our streets than answer the American people’s call to secure the border,” Fields stated in a press release to The Hill.
“The good news for America is that Democrats have no power in Washington, D.C., and will not succeed in their attempts to undermine the Trump Administration.”
Up to date at 4:24 p.m. EDT
