Are Trump's Deportations Constitutional?

Glenn Greenwald debates Anna Gorisch on Trump's deportation policies.

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Are Trump's Deportations Constitutional?

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Glenn Greenwald and Anna K. Gorisch debate the resolution, "President Trump's deportation policies generally violate key civil liberties as set forth in the U.S. Constitution."

Arguing in favor of the resolution is Greenwald, a journalist and podcaster who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the National Security Agency–Edward Snowden revelations. He left The Intercept in 2020 to become independent and is now the host of System Update nightly on Rumble.

Opposing the resolution is Gorisch, an immigration attorney at Kendall Immigration Law, PLLC, in Austin, Texas, focusing on employment-based immigration.

The debate is moderated by Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein.

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Chumby]

The illegal alien rapefugees are being deported. Buh-bye. The apportionment game is being ended.

[SQRLSY]

"Are Trump's Deportations Constitutional?"

No one cares, since the Orange Orangutan from Satanistanistanistanistanistanistan pays no heed to such things anyway!!! He is Dear Orange Leader (Bleeder of the peons) for LIFE!!! Blessed Be Shit's Holy Name!

[Mother's Lament]

Fuck off, Shillsy.

[SQRLSY]

"Are Trump's DELUSIONS (of PervFected TotalShitarianism) Constitutional?"

"Are The PervFected and Neglected and Mind-Infected DELUSIONS of Marxist-Moose-Mammary the Necrophiliac Constitutional?"

If Marxist-Moose-Mammary the Necrophiliac shits in the woods, and no one is there to smell shit, is shit REALLY there, or is shit in an indeterminate quantum state, both there and SNOT there?

[JohnZ]

Indeed. Let the liberals cry and scream......dinking liberal tears.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Hoo boy.

[sarcasmic]

Trump could shoot someone on 5th Ave and his defenders would cry”Lawfare!” if he was charged with murder. So his defenders certainly don’t care about the Constitution or the law. Never have. They only care about smiting their perceived enemies.

[Chumby]

Get help:

https://www.mainehealth.org/care-services/behavioral-health-care/substance-use-disorder-care-addiction/alcohol-use-disorder-mainehealth-behavioral-health

[SQRLSY]

"Mentally ill" or “insane”, my ass! Whoever disagrees with totalitarians is "mentally ill"! That makes YOU just like the communist totalitarian assholes of the USSR who used psychiatry to punish political dissidents, asshole!

Sure… All of those who disagree with MEEEE are… Mentally ILL!!! YES, this! Good authoritarians KNOW this already!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

All of the GOOD totalitarians KNOW that those who oppose totalitarianism are mentally ill, for sure!!!

[sarcasmic]

My new stalker is posting the same link on all my posts. My hate club keeps growing and growing, unlike their patriarch’s pee pee.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Your savior/victim complex is a symptom of your failing mental health.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

I just pray for liver failure. It’s awful to watch my brother in law’s younger brother go through it, but Sarc is a malignant Neo Marxist, and probably has caused lifelong misery to anyone around him.

It’s best if his time comes sooner than later.

[KARate kid]

“It’s awful to watch my brother in law’s younger brother go through it”

Is he a domestic terrorist supporter like you? If he is then good riddance!

Also hopefully Thomas Creech outlives him.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Boring.

Youre not even good at trolling. Worse than sqrsly.

[Mother's Lament]

"Is he a domestic terrorist supporter like you?"

You mean like Antifa and BLM?

[KARate kid]

No, more treasonous and christofascist. He runs in the same circles as Matt Shea and referred to him as a “patriot.”

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/dec/19/rep-matt-shea-engaged-in-domestic-terrorism-during/

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Still boring.

[Chumby]

Boring and no emotional control.

[SQRLSY]

Chumpy-Humpy-Dumpy Simp-Chimp-Chump; DR... DeRanged... Stranger Danger!!! THE Moist DeRanged Stranger of ALL... Swill now DEMON-strate Shit's SOOOO-strong "emotional cuntrol" by SNOT calling ALL of Shit's enemas "mentally ill"!

(Also note that grade-school Shit is icky-poo, and a bunch of poopy-heads. Deep Intellects have TOLD me so!)

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Your trolling instincts are way off, faggot. That kind of shit does nothing. Do you have anything else, or is that it?

[KARate kid]

You move to Idaho yet?

Maybe you can find someone there to fill the role of great-uncle?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Yeap. Still boring.

[Chumby]

Seek help:

https://maineaa.org/

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

They would probably hand him a gallon of Everclear and help him boozebong it, just to get rid of him.

[Chumby]

I’m promoting the IDEA of sobriety to him.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

I’m promoting the idea of suicide to him.

[SQRLSY]

Cuntsorevaturds making friends, gathering votes, and influencing people by... PEDDLING KOOL-AID AND SUICIDE!!! How's it workin' for ya, servant, serpent, and slurp-pants (pants-slurper) of the Evil One?

EvilBahnFuhrer, drinking EvilBahnFuhrer Kool-Aid in a spiraling vortex of darkness, cannot or will not see the Light… It’s a VERY sad song! Kinda like this…

He’s a real Kool-Aid Man,
Sitting in his Kool-Aid Land,
Playing with his Kool-Aid Gland,
His Hero is Jimmy Jones,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jim-Jones
Loves death and the dying moans,
Then he likes to munch their bones!
He’s truly, completely a necrophiliac,
His brain, squirming toad-like, is REALY, really whack!
Has no thoughts that help the people,
He wants to turn them all to sheeple!
On the sheeple, his Master would feast,
Master? A disaster! Just the nastiest Beast!
Kool-Aid man, please listen,
You don’t know, what you’re missin’,
Kool-Aid man, better thoughts are at hand,
The Beast, to LEAVE, you must COMMAND!

A helpful book is to be found here: M. Scott Peck, Glimpses of the Devil
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1439167265/reasonmagazinea-20/

Hey EvilBahnFuhrer …
If EVERYONE who makes you look bad, by being smarter and better-looking than you, killed themselves, per your wishes, then there would be NO ONE left!
Who would feed you? Who’s tits would you suck at, to make a living? WHO would change your perpetually-smelly DIAPERS?!!?
You’d better come up with a better plan, Stan!

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

You cheered locking up 1k non violent J6ers and killing an unarmed woman.

Tou cheer antifa setting buildings on fire.

You cheered locking up Mackey for a meme.

Do I need to go on? Have a lot more examples.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

And I’ll bet he’s cheering this too………

https://nypost.com/2025/08/12/us-news/adam-schiff-authorized-classified-intel-leaks-to-smear-trump-during-russiagate-whistleblower-claims/

FTA:
“Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, authorized leaks of classified information to tarnish President Trump’s image during the Russiagate probe — having assumed he would lead the CIA in a Hillary Clinton administration, according to newly released whistleblower statements.

The unidentified male source, who worked as a Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee for 12 years after more than two decades in the intelligence community, told FBI agents in December 2017 that the mood among the panel became “indescribable” after Trump’s upset win the year before.

“Ranking member [Schiff] was particularly upset, as he had believed he would have been appointed as the director of the CIA had candidate [Hillary Clinton] won the election,” according to a summary of the interview obtained by The Post.”

[DesigNate]

I’m still skeptical of “unidentified staffers”, though they’re a damn sight better than “anonymous sources” and “people familiar with the situation”, so I’ll take this with a grain of salt.

Having said that Schiff is a gigantic piece of shit, so I could totally see him doing something petty like that.

[Rick James]

To be fair, Trump could spend his afternoons in the Christian Science Reading room, and the #Resistance would prosecute him for murder and Sullum would write "reasonable, doo processesses!"

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Yes.

Next dumb question.

[Incunabulum]

Is there really a debate on this?

1. The power to deport has long been recognized.

2. The appellate courts keep siding with Trump in the legality of his actions.

[Incunabulum]

I guess this is one I will have to find time to listen to because I can understand how someone may not want people deported - I can't imagine under what rationale they would find that deportations are forbidden altogether.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

My guess under the infinite due process theory of the left.

[Chumby]

Those that want to keep the apportionment grift alive, don’t like liberty folks and seek population replacement, and those part of the govt handouts industrial complex.

[Nobartium]

Don't you know that the constitution applies to everyone, everywhere, in both time directions?

[Zeb]

Well, it applies to the government actions in all cases. There are certainly valid questions on when the government can treat citizens and non-citizens or illegal aliens differently. THat said, obviously deporting people who are illegal aliens is a valid function of the federal government.

[JasonT20]

2. The appellate courts keep siding with Trump in the legality of his actions.

What source are you using to justify this claim? This one seems to be tracking a lot of challenges to Trump administration actions:

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/#

In total, those numbers for cases that have had at least some action on them seem pretty 50/50 in total. Granted, that seems to be everything, not just immigration orders.

[JohnZ]

Agreed...since those illegal aliens are in the country ILLEGALLY and as we have noticed, many of them are criminals, rapists, murderers, drug dealers, gang bangers and worse, Venezuelans, Trump has every power to removes these ILLEGAL ALIENS without the approval of some Obama appointed activist judge.

[James Basil]

This is a very interesting topic because for one both Republicans and democrats are divided on it! I'm not a conservative or a liberal and I fucking hate the label of independent because iv listened to some podcasts where the host is like I'm a independent but everything that comes out of there trap is woke liberal bullshit. I might be a libertarian I am very anti regulations and the government controlling are body's which both left and the right have no problem doing. Ok I'm going off topic! My thoughts on wether or not its constitutional to deport people comes down to why are they being deported? The trump administrations original so called plan was to get rid of violent groups of people who are not doing anything constructive to there communities. They didn't word it quite like I did but that shit was implied. Most Americans who are not the loons on the far left agreed with that. Now those same groups of people have changed there opinion except for those on the far right. I think it is unconstitutional to deport those who are good people in there community. Next question is how much power is to much and both the Biden's administration and the Trumps administration have done things that a dictator would have done. The Biden's administration crusade against the unvaccinated. The Trump administration targeting news organizations and universities that they disagreeed with. Ok now I'm done!

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Claims to not be on a side, repeats the democrat narratives. Lol.

[Quicktown Brix]

Jesse diagnoses another Democrat. Shocking!

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

It isn’t complicated Quixy. You democrats are pretty easy to pick out of a crowd.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

He should know the dem narratices above. He repeats them blindly as well. Maybe he isnt aware he is doing so, but he has shown a consistent lack of intellectual curiosity besides corporate media narratives.

[DesigNate]

It was probably this part:

“The trump administrations original so called plan was to get rid of violent groups of people”

They were pretty open and clear that they were going to go after everybody, so repeating this Dem talking point is just silly.

Personally, I thought the post read more like a bot who was fed some “both sides” prompts.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

You are correct sir.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

The constitution gives the federal government the power and obligation to regulate immigration. It doesn't create exceptions for nice people. This is black letter law and always has been. It's also a political issue and Congress can modify anyway they want but deportation has never been illegal or unconstitutional.

[Liberty_Belle]

Follow due process, and very few ppl would care. Trump isn't following due process because he knows what he is doing is wrong. He is counting on booting them out before anyone gets around to asking whether it was legal or not so he doesn't have to actually answer for what he's doing. He's not even hiding it.

[Social Justice is neither]

Bullshit you lying commie cunt. Most of these people have been legally ordered out of the country and they refuse, the rest are here illegally and actively avoiding having that determination made. You just demand infinite do overs until time runs out.

[Chumby]

They are going back to their homes. Buh-bye.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

More vague claims from you. You’re almost as dumb as Tony.

Or would you care to back up your claims with specifics?

[Gaear Grimsrud]

God this due process shit is tiresome. Due process does not require that everybody or anybody gets a jury trial and the wizened judgement of a 3 judge appellate court panel. It only requires that similarly situated individuals receive the same process in the jurisdiction where they find themselves. That process is a political matter that can vary wildly from state to state. In the case of immigration the Congress has established immigration courts. These are title two courts not title three courts and are independent of the judiciary and are administered by the executive. Individuals who enter the country illegally or have violated the terms of their visa are subject to deportation. Period. Any claims of asylum are adjucated in the immigration court and well over 9 out of 10 will fail. This is the process Trump is using. Spurious claims that he is denying due process are either dishonest or just plain ignorant.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

They dishonestly claim that what Trump is doing is somehow new, and not based on long existing law. But that isn’t surprising, since most of our leftists here are very stupid, ignorant people.

[Liberty_Belle]

Two Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS News that ICE is conducting an operation to expedite the deportation of migrants with court hearings scheduled in the near future. It's the latest step taken by the Trump administration to dramatically ramp up immigration arrests across the country and fulfill what the president has promised will be the largest deportation campaign in American history.

The operation involves ICE prosecutors asking immigration judges to terminate the court cases of certain migrants, so agents at the agency can instead arrest those individuals and place them in a more rapid deportation process known as "expedited removal," the officials said.

Unlike immigration court proceedings, which can take years to complete due to a massive backlog of 4 million pending cases, the expedited removal process allows officials to more quickly deport migrants, if their cases satisfy certain conditions.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-ending-migrants-court-cases-arrest-move-to-deport-them/

[Michael Ejercito]

Comgress has plenary power to admit or exclude aliens, so Congress decides what process is due.

[DesigNate]

I wonder if they want to arrest them for crime they are known to have committed so they can use that to eliminate the way they game the system? Nah, I’m sure all of those people they want to do that with are pure as the driven snow.

[Incunabulum]

What is the due process?

They get a hearing in front of an immigration judge already and they have a deportation order from that judge.

[Liberty_Belle]

And the Supreme Court has established multiple times that every person on U.S. soil — regardless of their immigration status — is entitled to due process. In the 1976 case, Mathews v. Diaz, the court declared that the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protects the millions of non-citizens living in the U.S. “from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

-snip-

On social media, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote that due process “guarantees the rights of a criminal defendant facing prosecution, not an illegal alien facing deportation.” But the Supreme Court has criticized the administration’s actions and stated that the government “must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”

https://www.kqed.org/news/12042492/what-is-due-process-habeas-corpus-definition-courts-push-back-trump-moves-limit-this-right

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Due process is being followed. Just because you're ignorant to what the term means doesn't mean it isnt being followed.

[John Rohan]

There is due process. The due process is verifying the migrant's identity and immigration status.

Deportation is not an administrative action, not a judicial one, so they aren't entitled to a judge and jury.

[Bruce Hayden]

It IS an Administrative action. Under jurisdiction and control of Article II Immigration courts.

[DesigNate]

Half of the sob stories have been people that already have standing deportation orders that the previous administration just decided not to carry out.

[Bruce Hayden]

Not true.

What the Dems mean by Due Process is a hearing by an Article III judge, that can be appealed to a Circuit court, etc. They want this because of the infeasibility of deporting very many of the illegals within a decent timeframe. Millions of illegals awaiting their trials or hearings, many scheduled a decade or so out. Can’t hold them that long, so have to just let them out until their trial. They know that giving each illegal the right to an Article III hearing means that they won’t be deported.

But what Due Process really means here is that that illegal aliens get the amount of Process that they are Due. And by statute and case law, that means an Article II, not an Article III, hearing, before an Immigration Judge. Hearings and appeals are streamlined. It effectively goes something like this:
1) Are they a citizen? If yes, release them.
2) Are they a legally resident Alien? If yes, then Release them
3) Issue order of Removal.
4) Have they properly raised a valid reason to delay Removal?
5) If Delay Reason not properly and timely raised, then Remove.
6) Determine if Delay Reason valid.
7) If Delay Reason not valid, then Remove.

Notice the difference between Article II and III hearings here. Flip out your Real ID or certified Birth Certificate, and you are released. The burden is then on the Detainee to show why he shouldn’t be immediately removed. No jury trials, Discovery, etc. The presumption is that non-citizens who cannot show proper authorization by the US govt to stay, should be Removed. Streamlined, and when the Supreme Court tells a District Court that they don’t have Jurisdiction, this is what they mean - that Congress created the Article III lower courts, gave them jurisdiction over certain matters, and Immigration isn’t one of them. Jurisdiction over Immigration matters is, by law, with the Article II Immigration courts. So, WTF are Article III judges doing screwing up their docket? Oh, and this is why it’s just fine for JAG officers to work temporarily as Immigration Judges, since they all work for the President.

[Deep Lurker]

"But what Due Process really means here is that that illegal aliens get the amount of Process that they are Due."

Nitpick: What Due Process really means is that those accused of being illegal aliens get the amount of Process that they are Due.

"Flip out your Real ID or certified Birth Certificate, and you are released."

Papiere Bitte! Which puts the burden of proof on the detainee from the very start. Not everyone has Real ID (some of us refuse to get it as a matter of principle) and not everyone has a birth certificate that meets the latest paranoid requirements of being "certified." They're US citizens. They were born here. They've lived their whole lives here. They never needed a passport or other "Papiere Bitte!" to prove their citizenship because, back when they were born, the US still somewhat resembled a free country.

[Vernon Depner]

We are repelling an invasion. That's going to result in some inconveniences. Quit whining and blame those who caused the problem, not those who are solving it.

[Liberty_Belle]

Inconvenience

Classic slippery slope that appears just before a "when they came for me" moment.

[Vernon Depner]

I am not an invader. Are you?

[Bruce Hayden]

Except that foreign looking is but one factor. Next throw in speech. It’s fairly easy to detect most Americans by their speech. We lived in a subdivision with a lot of Hispanics, and we could tell fairly well who was 1st, 2nd, and subsequent generations. CBP/ICE do this daily. They are pros at this, A lot of the Central American illegals didn't even speak Spanish as a first language. That is often some native (Indian) dialect. If American English is your first, or even close second, language, you are very, very, likely to be native, and thus, a citizen.

So, if you are short, with darker skin, don’t speak English as a first or close second, language, are picked up in a HD parking lot, if ICE thinks that you are illegal, you probably are. They are very good at this. And that is where Real ID, certified birth certificate, US passport, etc come in. To counter one of their very rare false positives.

Or maybe to put a more legal veneer over this, location, looks, speech, etc take the CBP/ICE agents well beyond Reasonable Suspicion. Probably even to Probable Cause. A timely Real ID, birth certificate, passport, etc presentation at that point keeps you from going to federal detention until your Immigration Court hearing.

[JohnZ]

ILLEGAL ALIENS don't get due process. They're ILLEGAL ALIENS.

[Keldonric]

Why call it constitutional when Chae Chan Ping grounded immigration power in extra-constitutional “inherent sovereignty”?

[John Rohan]

I think it is unconstitutional to deport those who are good people in there community.

So if an otherwise good person is squatting in your house, you think it would be unconstitutional to remove them?

[Fats of Fury]

Are Trump's Deportations Constitutional?

Were Hoover's Deportations Constitutional?

Were FDR's Deportations Constitutional?

Were Eisenhower's Deportations Constitutional?

Because they all deported millions of illegal Mexicans.

[JohnZ]

FDR's rounding up of 120,000 Japanese Americans was illegal in every sense of the word. Just another black mark on America.

[Kungpowderfinger]

“It’s unconstitutional to deport Undocumented Democrats”
- Reason

[DesigNate]

I’ll give it a listen while I’m working tonight. I generally like Greenwald, he’s a decent journalist. He clings to a lot of his leftist biases though, so I can already guess at what his arguments for the resolution will be.

[TJJ2000]

Get over it Reason. Invaders don't have a 'right' to the USA.

14A "the privileges or immunities of *citizens* of the United States"

[AT]

We'll know after we've deported them all.

[Michael Ejercito]

Deportation policy is subject only to limited judicial review against a constitutional challenge. Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 793fn.5 (1977). See also Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580 (1952), cited in Fiallo, 430 U.S. at 792

[JasonT20]

As put by Justice Powell, who wrote for the majority, it was not, “the judicial role in cases of this sort to probe and test the justifications for the legislative decision.

Fiallo seems to have been stating a principle of judicial restraint in judging the law as passed by Congress, as Congress exercises its authority to regulate immigration and naturalization.* You'll have to point out more specifically where it limits judicial review of executive actions to enforce immigration law.

* This is something I view skeptically itself. The enumerated list of the powers of Congress in the Constitution doesn't seem to place some of them further from judicial review than others, as I read it.

[Michael Ejercito]

You'll have to point out more specifically where it limits judicial review of executive actions to enforce immigration law.
It limits review of executive actions against a constitutional challenge.

[JasonT20]

Where in the decision does it say that? Brief summaries of the decision I'm seeing don't say that, only that it limits review of the law itself.

[JasonT20]

There really needs to be a major clarification that the questions being asked are mostly about the constitutionality of how the Trump administration is deporting people. There are some questions over whether people here legally can be deported arbitrarily to meet the politically driven 3000/day quota, or because they said something that the administration doesn't like, but the biggest criticisms are about due process rights. You know, a right guaranteed to all persons, not all citizens or just the people we like.

[Bruce Hayden]

They are getting the Due Process that they are Due (which is a hearing before an Article II Immigration judge). Just not the Due Process that the left thinks that they should have (a hearing/trial before an Article III judge).

Let’s do this slowly. The Constitution provided for the Supreme Court and whatever lower courts Congress provides, with whatever jurisdiction they provide. Congress gave jurisdiction over immigration matters, such as determining whether someone is in the US legally, and if not, whether to remove them, to Article II Immigration courts, and not to Article III courts. So, no, except in rare circumstances, they don’t have, by right, the ability to have their cases heard in federal district courts. You may not like that, but the place to change this is in Congress, which made the rules, when they created these two court systems and allocated jurisdiction to each.

[JasonT20]

Of course, a more relevant question than any of this back-and-forth over the legality of deportations is this:

Why isn't anyone in Trump-world going after the employers?

Given how often we hear about raids taking place at businesses or farms, where is the prosecution or consequences that the employers face for hiring immigrants without work authorization?

If you really want the illegals out, then they will self deport in large numbers if they can't find jobs. Those that are actually criminals and gang members won't, of course, but then if those that aren't criminals are self deporting, then ICE agents will be better able to focus on the criminals.

Of course, there could be consequences to prices for fresh produce, fresh meat, housing, and more if cheap, under-the-table labor is not abundant...

[DesigNate]

Democrats for a permanent underclass.

This is my shocked face.

[JohnZ]

It's all too obvious, liberals and progressive activists would rather have their own young daughters raped and murdered by ILLEGAL ALIENS than to allow one ILLEGAL ALIEN to be deported.
Liberals support for ILLEGAL ALIENS rather than support for Americans is what's going to kill the democrat party.
If you want to see the results of uncontrolled immigration just consider the most prolific name for young male infants in the U.K. is now Muhammed.
Germany is collapsing and France is now a total shit hole run by a a Rothchild tool married to a man.