President Donald Trump’s success rate on deportations does not come as a surprise, even with his actions coming with just 100 days in office, Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Newsmax on Sunday.
“I have had that question asked before and I can tell you sometimes the answer shocks people when I tell them I’m not surprised at all,” Del Cueto, appearing on Newsmax’s “Sunday Agenda” with Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, commented.
“I worked with [Trump] and I saw what he was doing back in 2016 when he first got elected,” Del Cueto added. “The first time the numbers dropped, just on his rhetoric. I knew what he was, you know, going to be doing, pushing forward. I knew he was going to have the right leadership in place.”
Large mug shot images of criminal alients have been placed at the White House, and while Del Cueto said he’s happy with where the push against illegal immigration is going, he’s concerned that the “radical left” will use the publicity garnered by the photos to get some of those who have been deported returned.
“The radical left is so desperate to import some of these guys back, maybe they’re going to be taking notes, trying to find them so they can bring them back again,” he said. “That’s the only thing I was thinking, though. We know that some people aren’t happy.”
Ries, meanwhile, pushed back against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who has compared the deportations to immigrants being sent, without due process, to “concentration camps.”
“She needs to read the Immigration and Nationality Act, which Congress passed,” said Ries. “The left is deliberately using words like due process because they are trying to confuse the public regarding criminal proceedings and civil proceedings. Immigration proceedings are not criminal. They are civil proceedings. If a judge issues your order of removal, that is not a criminal conviction, nor is it a criminal sentence to be deported. That is what the law states, and that is what the executive branch is carrying out, the laws that Congress passed.”
Del Cueto also discussed a video that has been released, revealing the alleged background of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, including claims that he abused his wife and was involved in human trafficking.
“With the clothes he was wearing, the tattoos he had on, the people he hung out with, and now this has come out, who wants him back in the country?” said Del Cueto. “I don’t even want this guy in our prison system, to be honest, because he’ll train other inmates on what to do.… I worked in the prison system before working for the Border Patrol, and I can tell you, I don’t want this individual even in my prison.”
But the left, he said, is “making martyrs out of criminals … that’s how far lost they are.”
Ries further commented that judges who are ruling against the Trump administration’s push on deportations are “swimming way out of their judicial lane.
“This seemed to be a concerted effort when Senator [Chuck] Schumer led the Senate and rammed through a lot of judicial confirmations for this very purpose. These courts, the appellate courts, even the Supreme Court, they need to take a breath and look at the law and issue limited decisions in their limited judicial capacity, consistent with what Congress has passed and what the executive branch is trying to carry out.”
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