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Border czar Tom Homan didn’t have an answer when asked about whether President Donald Trump’s idea to deport United States citizens to foreign prisons is legal, saying it’s a question for the Department of Justice, not him.
“I don’t deport U.S. citizens,” Homan told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday when asked if he believes it would be legal to send American prisoners to foreign prisons. “I think what [the Trump administration is] talking about is either extradition or prisoner transfer. That’d be a question for the DOJ.”
Andrew Thomas / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP
Homan said Collins should ask Attorney General Pam Bondi.
However, when Bondi was asked the same question by Fox’s Jesse Watters on Tuesday, she also did not say whether it is legal to send U.S. citizens to a foreign prison.
“These people need to be locked up as long as they can, as long as the law allows. We’re not going to let them go anywhere, and if we have to build more prisons in our country, we will do it,” Bondi told Watters.
Under U.S. law, Bondi’s Department of Justice and U.S. Marshals Service are the government agencies that oversee transferring U.S. prisoners to another country or extracting them from one.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement handles deportations, a term that applies to people who are not U.S. citizens. Homan said Thursday that prison transfers of citizens are “out of my lane.”
“As a border czar, I will not remove a U.S. citizen,” he told Collins.
However, the Trump administration has publicly used the term “deport” when referring to sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump is exploring pathways to “deport” U.S. citizens.
“The president has said if it’s legal, right, if there is a legal pathway to do that. He’s not sure, [and] we are not sure if there is,” Leavitt said earlier this month. “It’s an idea that he has simply floated and has discussed very publicly in the effort of transparency.”
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“Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!” he wrote on Truth Social.
The idea of sending U.S. citizens to prisons in El Salvador came up again during a meeting between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Trump on Monday, when the U.S. president said he was “all for it.” Trump went on to praise the notorious prisons and offer to pay for expansions to hold Americans.
“The homegrowns are next,” Trump said.
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