US Leader Casts Doubt on Legal Protections Amid Mass Deportation Campaign
International observers warn the United States may be entering a period where its constitutional architecture is increasingly shaped — or discarded — by executive will.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — As part of a sweeping campaign to expel millions of people from its territory, the government of the United States is pursuing policies that appear to sideline constitutional protections once considered a hallmark of its democratic system.
In a nationally broadcast interview from his private compound in Florida, President Donald J. Trump questioned whether non-citizens are entitled to due process — the right to a legal hearing — under U.S. law.
“I don’t know,” Trump said when asked whether he agreed with his own Secretary of State, who had affirmed that all individuals are entitled to such protections. “I’m not a lawyer.”
The comments come as the Trump regime attempts to carry out what it describes as the “largest deportation operation in American history,” targeting undocumented migrants, including those it claims are associated with foreign criminal organizations.
The move has alarmed constitutional scholars and human rights advocates, who say it echoes tactics used by authoritarian regimes to bypass judicial oversight.
While the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits depriving “any person” of liberty without due process, Trump suggested that such protections may be too burdensome. “We’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said. “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”
The government has invoked an obscure 18th-century statute — the Alien Enemies Act — to justify bypassing standard legal procedures. Legal experts note the law is typically reserved for wartime and has rarely been used in modern times.
The U.S. Supreme Court has intervened on multiple occasions, halting deportations carried out without judicial review. In one case, men were en route to an airfield before a pre-dawn court order stopped their removal. But Trump has framed the courts as an obstacle. “I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said.
Observers say the situation reflects growing institutional strain within a nation long regarded as a stable democracy — and a willingness by its current leadership to test the boundaries of constitutional rule.