President Trump: ‘I don’t know’ if migrant’s due process rights are protected under the Constitution

President Trump says the courts are preventing him from delivering on his campaign promise to rid the nation of violent unauthorized immigrants, adding that he doesn’t know if the noncitizens must be afforded due process rights.

Mr. Trump said he relies on Attorney General Pam Bondi and his administration’s lawyers to resolve constitutional challenges to his deportation push.

“The big emergency right now is that we have thousands of people that we want to take out and we have judges that want everybody to go to court,” Mr. Trump said in a recorded interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.

Asked if the due process rights of migrants swept up in the deportation cases are protected under the Constitution, Mr. Trump answered, “I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.”

The president said he is concerned that granting due process rights to every migrant he seeks to deport would bring things to a screeching halt and, ultimately, make the nation less safe.

“We have millions of people, we are going to have millions of court cases?” Mr. Trump said. “Figure two weeks a court case, it would be 300 years.”

Mr. Trump has tested his deportation powers and faced stiff pushback from the courts.

The latest legal challenge came last week after U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans it has labeled criminals from the Southern District of Texas.

Judge Rodriguez said Mr. Trump failed to make the case that Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang in question, fits that description. While Mr. Trump highlighted the dangers the gang poses to the U.S., he didn’t make the case that it is engaged in “an organized armed attack.”

“For these reasons, the court concludes that the president’s invocation of the AEA through the proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful. “Respondents do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country,” ruled the judge, who was appointed to the court in southern Texas by Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump had relied on the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations of members of TdA and MS-13, both gangs that the government has now designated as terrorist organizations.

Mr. Trump’s critics have argued he is trampling on the due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and has relied on unproven allegations of gang ties.

“I think the question we need to ask is, are we a nation that values the rule of law and our Constitution and due process?” said Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, on “Fox News Sunday.” “Due process is a critical bedrock principle in this country.”

“Every person in this country deserves due process and that is not what is happening under this administration,” Mr. Martin said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump said that if migrants are afforded due process rights, “we will have to have a million, 2 million, or 3 million trials.”

“We have thousands of people — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on earth … and I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said.