Speaking during an appearance on CNN’s “The Arena,” Senator James Lankford (R-OK) went on the attack against President Donald Trump and declared that more “due process” protections are needed for illegal aliens as ICE and DHS try to deport them, something that could mean significant delays in dealing with the massive illegal immigration problem, given the scale involved.
As background, much of the “due process” freakout has occurred in the wake of the Trump Administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan gangsters affiliated with Tren de Aragua and El Salvadorian gangsters affiliated with MS-13 in mid-March. Democrats and RINOs quickly lost their minds over that, claiming the illegal alien gangsters should have had more “due process.”
Amonst those who were attacking President Trump for deporting the gangsters was RINO Sen. Lankford, the same one behind the disaster of an immigration “deal” under former President Biden, who did so during his appearance on CNN, saying that “before they’re removed from the country,” illegal aliens should have more opportunities to contest their deportation.
Introducing the matter was CNN’s Kasie Hunt, who asked the senator if he thinks “President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with Kristen Welker at ‘Meet the Press’ over the weekend. She asked him whether he would uphold the Constitution in providing due process to people who are deported and his answer was not yes. Are you confident that President Trump will uphold the Constitution?”
Responding, Sen. Lankford first pretended to be on the side of the president while also diminishing his pro-Constitution statement, telling Hunt, “I am. I think his answer was, ‘I’ve got good attorneys advising me on all those things, and they’re going to make sure they get it right.'”
Continuing, the senator introduced the due process problem by noting that American citizens have certain due process protections, which doesn’t apply to illegal aliens, saying, “What’s been confusing on this is some people see due process like us as American citizens, and that’s a right to a jury trial, that’s all those different things.”
He then noted that those protections are different for immigration-related matters, as the protections are different, saying, “That’s not true for due process for someone who’s not a citizen of the United States. It’s a different process. It’s often just literally what people call an immigration judge, which is not a typical federal judge or a state judge; this is someone that’s in the bureaucracy.”
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Concluding, Sen. Lankford got to the point where he really went on the attack against President Trump, ignoring that the Alien Enemies Act obviates the due process situation he was describing, claiming that the deported gangsters and others need an opportunity to contest their deportation. He said, “So there is a very different process for it, but yes, there is a need to give an opportunity for someone to be able to make an argument before they are removed from the country.”
Watch the RINO senator here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video