Trump ‘looking into’ legality of deporting US citizens who commit violent crimes, says White House – US politics live
Trump ‘looking into’ the legality of deporting US citizens who commit violent crimes to El Salvador
Asked if deporting American citizens to central American prisons is legal or if it will require a change in the law, Leavit says:
It’s a legal question the president is looking into … He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.
Yesterday, Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador “if they’re criminals”.
Key events
Asked about Joe Biden’s upcoming speech focused on defending Social Security, Leavitt says:
President Trump is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, tax-paying, American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program. He will always protect this program.
Relief is being considered for farmers, who face lower prices and high inventories amid the trade war between the US and China.
Leavitt says:
Relief is being considered. The secretary of agriculture, I know, has spoken to the president about that, and again, it’s being considered.
Trump spoke with the sultan of Oman about the next round of Iran talks scheduled for Saturday in Oman, Leavitt says.
Trump’s bottom line in the talks is he wanted to use negotiations to ensure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon, she says.
Trump and the Omani leader also discussed ongoing US operations against Yemen’s Houthis, she says.
‘Harvard should apologize for antisemitism’, says White House
Donald Trump wants to see Harvard apologize, Leavitt says when asked if the president is considering the possibility of removing the school’s tax-exempt status.
When it comes to Harvard, as I said, the president has been quite clear, they must follow federal law. He also wants to see Harvard apologize, and Harvard should apologize for the egregious antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students.
Yesterday both Trump and Nayib Bukele said they wouldn’t act on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador.
Asked who is responsible for what happens to him, Leavitt repeats all the key claims of the Trump administration, none of which it has provided evidence for.
[Bukele] is not going to smuggle a foreign terrorist back into the United States of America as many in this room and in the Democrat party seemingly want him to do.
Abrego Garcia was a foreign terrorist. He is an MS-13 gang member. He was engaged in human trafficking. He illegally came into our country. And so deporting him back to El Salvador was always going to be the end result.
There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland.
She adds:
I’m not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand. And it’s appalling that there has been so much time covering this … It’s truly striking to me.
Trump has not made a determination on raising the corporate tax rate to pay for other tax cuts, Leavitt says. “I don’t believe the president has made a determination on whether he supports it or not,” she says.
Leavitt says more than 15 trade deals have been put on the table and are actively being considered.
Trump ‘looking into’ the legality of deporting US citizens who commit violent crimes to El Salvador
Asked if deporting American citizens to central American prisons is legal or if it will require a change in the law, Leavit says:
It’s a legal question the president is looking into … He would only consider this, if legal, for Americans who are the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who nobody in this room wants living in their communities.
Yesterday, Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador “if they’re criminals”.
Leavitt says on Harvard:
A lot of Americans are wondering why their tax dollars are going to these universities when they’re not only indoctrinating our nation’s students but also allowing such egregious, illegal behavior to occur.
On Harvard, Leavitt claims that Harvard has allowed antisemitism on its campus, breaking federal law, and therefore should not get federal funding.
Last week the government’s antisemitism taskforce accused the university of having “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.
The Trump administration demanded that Harvard ban face masks and close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”. The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
When Harvard refused to comply with the list of demands, Trump cut $2.3bn in federal grants to the university.
Leavitt calls Kilmar Abrego Garcia (without evidence) “an “MS-13 gang member, Salvadorian, illegal alien criminal who was hiding in Maryland” and attacks the media coverage of the case “despicable” and “sensationalized”.
In fact, Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland legally and had a work permit. He was unlawfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March, despite a court order that he not be sent there. Last week the supreme court unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” his release, but yesterday, the Trump administration misrepresented that decision, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to secure his release.
White House press briefing
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is due to begin speaking to reporters soon. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
Lauren Gambino
Voters in Oakland will elect a new mayor today in a race that many residents view as a battle between a hometown hero and Big Tech money.
Barbara Lee, who represented Oakland in Congress for a quarter-century and is known internationally for her lonely stand against the use of military force in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, faces a strong challenge from former city councilman Loren Taylor.
While Lee has won the backing of local leaders – including nearly every member of the city council, former mayors of the city and labor unions, her opponent is drawing outside support from a coalition of independent groups backed by wealthy tech executives that have worked to elect more moderate Democrats in blue cities across the Bay Area. The effort has had success helping to elect tech-friendly mayors in San Francisco and San Jose and funding successful recall efforts against progressive leaders, including the former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao. Thao was recently indicted on federal bribery charges; she denies wrongdoing.
“The tech bros, the oligarchy, crypto bros, all of that stuff that we’re starting to see here – it came from San Francisco politics,” said Pamela Drake, a longtime activist and progressive political commentator who is supporting Lee.
Drake said she feared a “tech takeover” of the city’s politics. “That is what we see as a real threat,” she said, “that it is no longer going to be Oaklanders deciding what we want done.”
She pointed to a pro-Taylor committee that received tens of thousands of dollars from Max Hodak, who co-founded Neuralink with Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle large swaths of the federal workforce. Hodak split with Musk several years ago.
In an interview, Taylor, who narrowly lost the 2022 mayor’s race to Thao, called the claim that his campaign was driven by outside money “inaccurate” and emphasized his fundraising strength among grassroots Oakland-based donors.
‘Shock to the system’: farmers hit by Trump’s tariffs and cuts say they need another bailout
Nina Lakhani
Farmers across the US say they could face financial ruin – unless there is a huge taxpayer-funded bail out to compensate for losses generated by Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts and chaotic tariffs.
Rural counties rallied behind Trump last year, averaging 78% support in farming-dependent counties, but anxiety is mounting among the agricultural base. The climate crisis-fueled extreme weather is compounded by the US president’s looming trade war and the administration targeting popular federal programs and staff, leaving farmers reeling and resigned to needing another bailout.
Travis Johnson, who lost more than 1,000 acres of cotton, sorghum and corn after a year’s rain fell within 48 hours in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in southern Texas last month, turning parched fields into lakes, said:
There’s a lot of uncertainty around and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip. I am definitely worried.
RGV farmers sell sorghum, wheat, corn and vegetables to Mexico among other crops, while buying fertilizer and equipment – and relying on Mexican farmhands for cheap labor. Johnson added:
We’ve already had two years of absolute disaster with falling prices and weather patterns … no farmer wants this but without a bailout this could be devastating and a lot more people could go under.
The Trump administration has issued widespread cuts to oversubscribed and chronically underfunded federal climate and conservation schemes designed to reduce costs and greenhouse gases, and improve yields and environmental health.
Trump is also shuttering local food programs which provide farmers with stable domestic markets like public school districts and food banks, helping make farms more resilient to global economic shocks. The USAID, which purchased about $2bn every year in agricultural products particularly wheat, sorghum and lentils for humanitarian aid programs, has been dismantled.
The loss in federal programs alone would have been tough to cope with, but then came the trade chaos. Trump’s tariff announcements began when most farmers already had spring crops in the ground – or at the very least had prepared the land and purchased inputs such as seeds and pesticides, making it impossible to switch to crops that could potentially find a market domestically.
Consensus is growing among experts that the turmoil represents an opportunity for rival agriculture economies – and disaster for US farmers. Ben Murray, senior researcher with the consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said:
Without a bailout, we can only imagine how bad this will be for farmers and what an opportunity for Brazil – and this is all being done for a tax cut for the wealthy.
Judge drops case against man Pam Bondi called MS-13 leader and allows time to challenge deportation to El Salvador
A federal judge agreed on Tuesday to dismiss a gun charge against a man US attorney general Pam Bondi has called a leader of the MS-13 gang after prosecutors said the Trump administration wanted to deport rather than prosecute him, Reuters reports.
US magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick put the order on hold until Friday to allow the man, Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos, 24, to pursue other legal channels to contest what his lawyer warned could be an imminent removal to an El Salvador prison.
Fitzpatrick said the criminal case was not the proper forum to decide issues related to his deportation and noted that he had limited authority to question the decision by prosecutors to drop the charge.
“I cannot and will not go in and second guess decisions that are uniquely prosecutorial in nature,” Fitzpatrick said during a hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.
Villatoro Santos, a Salvadoran man living illegally in Virginia, was charged last month with illegal possession of a firearm after an FBI SWAT team raided his home. During a news conference, Bondi called him one of the top three leaders of MS-13 in the US and touted his arrest as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrant gangs.
In a criminal complaint, an immigration agent said law enforcement “observed indicia of MS-13 association” and seized four guns and ammunition during a search of Villatoro Santos’ room, but made no reference to his alleged leadership in the gang. He was not charged with any gang-related activity.
Villatoro Santos’ case is one of several in which Trump administration officials have publicly labeled immigrant detainees gang leaders and terrorists without backing up those claims with evidence in court.
Less than two weeks after Villatoro Santos was arrested, prosecutors moved to drop the charge and Bondi said he would face removal proceedings. A federal prosecutor, John Blanchard, told the judge on Tuesday that he did not know what would happen to Villatoro Santos once the charge was dropped.
A lawyer for Villatoro Santos asked the judge to delay ruling on the motion, warning of a risk that Villatoro Santos would be sent to El Salvador without the ability to challenge his deportation. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of migrants it has alleged are members of MS-13 and other transnational gangs to a prison in El Salvador without a court process.
The lawyer, Muhammad Elsayed, said the Trump administration had made a “high-profile spectacle” of the case and sought assurances that Villatoro Santos would have an opportunity to defend himself in immigration court.
“This was clearly a political decision,” Elsayed said of the decision to drop the criminal case.
