 "Trump’s AG Bondi calls Tesla vandalism ‘domestic terrorism’, but US has no specific law for the crime. AP")
US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday dodged questions about whether President Donald Trump’s idea of sending US citizens to El Salvador was legal — a proposal experts say is clearly against the law.
Trump made the proposal on Monday while meeting El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, in the Oval Office. El Salvador has been accepting deported undocumented migrants from the US and locking them up in a massive prison, a place where a grave number of human rights violations have occurred.
Violent offenders could be sent to El Salvador: Trump
Trump said that violent offenders in the US, such as those who attack strangers in subways or assault elderly women, could be sent to El Salvador and jailed there.
Pam Bondi dodges questions
When asked by Fox News host Jesse Watters if this plan was legal, Bondi chose not to give a clear answer.
“These are Americans who he is saying have committed the most heinous crimes in our country, and crime is going to decrease dramatically because he has given us a directive to make America safe again,” she said.
“These people need to be locked up as long as they can be, as long as the law allows. We’re not going to let them go anywhere, and if we have to build more prisons in our country, we will do it.”
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More ShortsEarlier, Trump said that he “loved” the idea of deporting US citizens to El Salvador. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump had “simply floated” the idea.
At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Leavitt was asked by the press if it was legal to send US citizens to prisons in Central America. She responded, “It’s a legal question that the president is looking into.”
She further said that Trump was only considering the move for Americans who are “the most violent, egregious repeat offenders.”