2 weeks Ago By Jack Hobbs
President Donald Trump openly admitted Monday that he would "like to go a step further" and start sending American criminals to an El Salvadoran gulag. The shocking comment was made by the president on Monday during a meeting with President Nayib Bukele. In the video, Trump , who is answering a question from a reporter about who would pay for the construction of the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the 78-year-old president said that the U.
S. would help pay for the facilities. Trump praised the centers as a "great" and "strong facility" adding that "they don't play games.
" It was then the U.S. president said that he wanted "to go a step further.
" Trump added, "I said to Pam, I don't know what the laws are, we always have to obey the laws." "But we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, hit elderly ladies in the back of the head with a baseball bat when they are not looking, they are absolute monsters," he said. "I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.
" Trump's very public comments about possibly deporting Americans come after a video of him whispering something to Bukele was published on social media. In the 29-second clip, which was posted to Twitter, Trump and Bukele can be heard whispering something. In the video, which is grainy, Trump can be heard saying, "Home-growns are next.
The home-growns." Trump adds that Bukele needs has "gotta build about five more places" and that the current facilities "were not big enough." Trump's comment came while the Commander-in-Chief was showing Bukele around the White House.
The comments were met with a wave of laughter and Bukele assuring Trump that there "was enough room." "He’s going to apply this to anyone he doesn’t like," one person on Twitter commented. "It didn't start with gas chambers the first time around either," a second person stated.
This idea, in and of itself, should be an impeachable offense," a third person stated. "It is crazy we have a president suggesting he can imprison Americans in another country." One person attempted to defend the president, stating that he did not hear the question properly.
"Listen to the whole exchange on video, obvious he did not hear the question properly," they wrote. "He was responding to a scenario where an illegal enters the country," the person added. "At one point he even says 'when they come here', obviously indicating that he did not hear the question.
" Since the posting of the video, one legal expert has weighed in on whether Trump has the legal authority to deport Americans. “It is illegal to expatriate U.S.
citizens for a crime,” wrote Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Social Justice in New York, told the Associated Press. It was said by Eisen that even if the administration did try to transfer federal prisoners there, arguing they’re already incarcerated, it could run afoul of the First Step Act that Trump himself championed and signed in 2018. The provision requires that the government try to house federal inmates as close to their homes as possible so their families can visit them — and indeed transfer anyone housed farther than 500 miles from their home to a closer facility.
Furthermore, sending Americans to CECOT could be seen as a violation of their Constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. One of CECOT’s selling points is that conditions there are far harsher than in prisons in the US. DAILY NEWSLETTER: Sign up here to get the latest news and updates from the Mirror US straight to your inbox with our FREE newsletter.
.
