Historian Frets That Trump Admin Deporting Gang Members Is ‘Really Slippery Slope’ To Expelling Innocents

Historian Heather Cox Richardson warned journalist Katie Couric on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration deporting gang members could lead to the deportation of innocent people.

The Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to send two planes reportedly carrying members of Tren de Aragua (TdA) to El Salvador on Saturday and later faced backlash after a United States District Judge issued an injunction ordering the planes to return. Richardson, on Couric’s YouTube channel, said “a rising authoritarian government” begins by purposely targeting objectionable individuals.

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“When that happens, once you have let that go, it’s very hard to start pulling that back and say, well, it was okay that you took a gang member that had committed a murder, and therefore it’s also okay that you took a gang member who hadn’t actually committed a murder,” Richardson said. “And then it’s okay that you took somebody who maybe was a gang member, and then it’s okay that you took somebody who wasn’t a gang member.”

“And then it’s okay that you took somebody who, it appears … was on one of those planes who was actually in the legal channels for getting asylum,” she continued. “You know, you start to hit a really slippery slope there, and where do you think it’s gonna stop?”

The historian also agreed with Couric when she suggested that deporting gang members was “the proverbial frog in the boiling water.”

The Alien Enemies Act, invoked by Trump on March 15,  provides American presidents vast authority to order the deportation of people from enemy countries without adhering to standard procedures, according to BBC.

Following the Saturday deportations, a group of Democratic senators released a statement Monday condemning the use of the Alien Enemies Act. They also suggested that American citizens and innocent people could improperly be expelled from the country based on his use of the law.

“Let’s be clear: we are not at war, and immigrants are not invading our country,” they wrote. “Furthermore, courts determine whether people have broken the law—not a president acting alone, and not immigration agents picking and choosing who gets imprisoned or deported … These protections are there to help ensure U.S. citizens aren’t wrongfully deported, or people who haven’t committed a crime aren’t wrongfully punished.”

“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg also warned Monday that no American is safe from deportation under the Trump administration.

However, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship to all people born on U.S. land, which cannot be stripped. Deportation is only relevant for naturalized citizens whose citizenship status is removed for attaining naturalization illegally or for breaching particular immigration laws, though rescinding the citizenship of such an individual is exceedingly rare, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Trump also signed an executive order on Jan. 20 designating cartels and criminal gangs, including TdA, as foreign terrorist organizations. El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed Saturday that his nation received 238 members of TdA and 23 MS-13 members.

Richardson previously warned Couric during a February podcast that if The Associated Press (AP) started to refer to the Gulf of America by its new name after the Trump administration restricting its access over its continued use of “Gulf of America,” it could be a significant step toward authoritarianism.

“That idea that reporters have to use the Gulf of America when it has been called the Gulf of Mexico since at least the 1550s is, I think, a way to say, ‘You’re in my reality now, and you have to bow to my reality,’” Richardson told Couric. “And it’s a terribly slippery slope because once you start to say, ‘Okay, I’ll let you get away with that,’ it’s harder the next time to say no. That’s a really important line to hold.”