President Trump said he doesn’t know if everyone in the U.S., citizens or non-citizens, is entitled to due process — the constitutional command stated in both the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendment.
“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Mr. Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” after she asked him whether he agreed that everyone on U.S. soil is entitled to due process in the court of law.
When asked by Welker in the interview aired Sunday if he thinks he has to uphold the Constitution as president, Mr. Trump also said, “I don’t know.”
“I have to respond by saying again, and I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said,” Mr. Trump said.
His comments come as he discussed the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran native who is married to a U.S. citizen and was living in Maryland before the Trump administration mistakenly deported him in March. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted in a court filing that the deportation of the Baltimore father was an “administrative error” and an “oversight.”
Last month, a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S., but Abrego Garcia remains in a detention facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador, after spending almost a month at the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
When asked about the delay in returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S. and whether he’s defying the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump told NBC that Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department had interpreted the court’s 9-0 decision differently.
“They’re not viewing the decision the way you said it. They don’t view it that way at all. They think it’s a totally different decision,” Mr. Trump said.
“I have the power to ask for him to come back if I’m instructed by the attorney general that it’s legal to do so,” the president added. “But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He’s a very capable man.”
President Nayib Bukele has said he won’t return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. During his visit to the White House last month, Bukele referred to Abrego Garcia as a “terrorist,” and said, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Mr. Trump also said in the interview that aired Sunday that there’s a possibility that the Department of Justice will go back to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to clarify their order to the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. The president and the Justice Department have said that Abrego Garcia shouldn’t be in the country because of his alleged involvement with MS-13.
The Trump administration, including its “border czar” Tom Homan, claimed that Abrego Garcia’s finger tattoos are among “one of many” proofs that he’s involved with the gang.
“He seems certainly like a very dangerous, very bad person,” the president told Welker, referencing the audio released last week by the Department of Homeland Security of Abrego Garcia’s wife when she filed a protective order against him in 2020, alleging domestic violence.
Jennifer Vasquez also filed another protective order against him back in 2021 over allegations of domestic violence, according to court records obtained by CBS News. Abrego Garcia has no criminal record and his family says he was never involved with a gang.
Since Abrego Garcia’s deportation, Vasquez has been outspoken in support of his return. At a rally outside the White House on Thursday, she said her husband “was thrown away to die.”
“My children and I had to watch Trump and Bukele’s administration laugh at our pain,” Vasquez said. “The highest court ruled that Kilmar should be returned home. So why are they still waiting? Enough is enough.”
