U.S. officials concerned over due process for migrants
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week in favor of the Trump administration to use the Alien Enemies Act to keep conducting mass deportations, which has raised concerns over the migrants' due process rights to have their cases reviewed before being deported.
"The due process is an important principle; of course we support that and we have to give Customs and Border Protection agents and everybody involved in the process, the resources they need to get the job done." said Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
On Friday, Rep. Veronica Escobar, (D) Texas, said they've gotten zero information on what the administration is doing with mass deportation since President Trump took office.
"We are getting zero information, there's zero transparency, and the administration is effectively creating a police state within the United States of America," Escobar said.
For Rep. Escobar, not only is this threat against legal immigrants paying their taxes but also the Trump Administration is now creating an incentive for immigrants legally here not to pay their taxes.
ABC-7 also spoke with the Executive Director of Estrella del Paso, Melissa M. Lopez, who said all these individuals should be allowed to go through the immigration court process. This is the due process system that's been created to evaluate claims and determine whether people should or should not be deported from the United States.
"People are scared of being caught up in the system and then not having an opportunity to speak to an attorney, the biggest thing that this is causing is a lot of confusion and a lot of fear for people." "We try and do our best to keep them informed, but at the end of the day, each case is so different that it's really hard to provide general information to the public that's going to be applicable to people in their individual cases," executive director Lopez said.
"We are going to continue to comply with the law, and we are wholly confident that every single person that has been deported under the Alien Enemies Act, every person that will continue to be deported under the Alien Enemies Act qualifies for that deportation," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
