Press Secretary Says Trump Wasn’t Joking About Deporting U.S. Citizens

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt waffled Tuesday when asked about Donald Trump’s threat to deport U.S. citizens to foreign prisons.

During a press briefing, Leavitt was asked to explain Trump’s disturbingly enthusiastic response to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s wildly illegal proposition for the U.S. government to relocate individuals incarcerated in the federal prison system, including American citizens, to the Central American country.

The reporter wanted to know how the government could legally remove U.S. citizens, and how many would potentially be subject to removal. The short answer is: It can’t, so none. But Leavitt didn’t say that.

“So, the president has discussed this idea quite a few times publicly, he’s also discussed it privately,” she said, making sure to say that Trump had only discussed “potentially” deporting U.S. citizens.

“These would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly. These are violent, repeat offenders in American streets,” Leavitt said.

“The president has said if it’s legal, if there’s a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure, we are not sure if there is, it’s an idea that he has simply floated and has discussed uh, very publicly, in the effort of transparency,” Leavitt said.

But Trump didn’t simply float the idea; it was offered by a foreign leader—who has already struck a $6 million deal to take alleged Venezuelan gang members that the Trump administration removed under the Alien Enemies Act.

Leavitt also took the opportunity to present her own alternative interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling Monday on removals under the AEA.

The court’s decision would allow the Trump administration to proceed with deportations under the AEA, but crucially, the ruling upheld the detainees’ right to due process, contrary to the Trump administration’s rampage against legal protections for people it wants to deport.

The justices said that detainees were entitled to receive notice of their removal within a reasonable time frame, and must be provided with an opportunity to challenge their removal. But when a reporter asked about it, Leavitt rejected the ruling.

“That’s not quite true,” Leavitt said. “They said that they are entitled to a habeas petition, and we are going to continue to comply with the law.”

The ruling said that detainees could be provided the opportunity to file habeas petitions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a MAGA-aligned court in Texas where the deportation flights are staged. The petitions will likely have to be individually filed, rather than via class action, which could lead to a torrent of litigation for far-right judges to smack down.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor emphasized this crucial point in her dissent, writing that “the government cannot usher any detainees, including plaintiffs, onto planes in a shroud of secrecy, as it did on March 15, 2025,” and that it could not “immediately resume removing individuals without notice.”

“To the extent the Government removes even one individual without affording him notice and a meaningful opportunity to file and pursue habeas relief, it does so in direct contravention of an edict by the United States Supreme Court,” she wrote.

The right-wing StopAntisemitism group thinks that children’s YouTube educator Ms. Rachel should be investigated by Attorney General Pam Bondi for “pro-Hamas propaganda.”

The New York Post reports that the organization sent a letter to Bondi complaining about social media posts from the YouTube star, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, about Palestinian children killed by Israel during its brutal massacre of Gaza since 2023.

“Her posts have largely ignored the suffering of Israeli victims, hostages, and Jewish children, while she consistently amplifies misinformation from Hamas and other anti-Israel sources,” StopAntisemitism director Liora Rez wrote in the letter.

Rez also claimed that with “vast sums of foreign funds” being “directed toward propagandizing our young people on college campuses, we suspect there is a similar dynamic in the online influencer space.”

“We urge you and your office to investigate whether or not Ms. Rachel is being remunerated to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers, as this may violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” Rez wrote to Bondi.

The organization accuses Accurso of using fabricated and debunked reports of children dying of hypothermia (that have actually been verified), and using death toll figures from Gaza that it says came from Hamas (but are actually considered reliable).

Accurso didn’t respond to the Post’s inquiries, but said on Instagram in May that “I care deeply for all children. Palestinian children, Israeli children, children in the US—Muslim, Jewish, Christian children—all children, in every country. Not one is excluded.”

The letter seems to be fitting into a pattern of pro-Israel organizations, such as Canary Mission and Betar, targeting critics of Israel’s military actions, as well as supporters of Palestinian self-determination. Betar says it has provided lists of noncitizen protesters to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies, recommending deportation.

Several international students targeted by Betar and Canary Mission, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained by ICE as they fight deportation in the courts. But Ms. Rachel is an American citizen with a YouTube following of millions of children around the world, and has merely expressed concern about a human rights catastrophe. It seems even that is grounds for a criminal investigation in today’s political climate.

On Monday, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to start sharing tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help the Trump administration find and deport undocumented immigrants, according to The New York Times.

This is a serious 180 from previous protocol. U.S. law historically requires the IRS to keep taxpayer information like addresses and income under wraps, even from other departments of the federal government. Now Trump is classifying these deportations as criminal investigations to take advantage of a loophole that breaks from that IRS privacy practice.

“It’s unprecedented,” Center for Taxpayer Rights director and former IRS official Nina Olson told the Times. IRS chief counsel William Paul was fired as the deal was made and replaced with Andrew De Mello, a Trump appointee.

Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 at a rate of $8,889 per person, paying into programs with benefits that they’re barred from receiving. This IRS and ICE deal will likely push undocumented immigrants to stop paying those taxes and pursue unreported employment to avoid getting their information leaked to ICE. These “under the table” jobs are unregulated, dangerous, and often exploitative.

The Trump administration is continuing its unconstitutional attack on attorneys it disagrees with, this time by detaining an American citizen.

Amir Makled, an attorney representing a pro-Palestinian student protester arrested at the University of Michigan last year, was detained at the Detroit Metro Airport Sunday upon returning from a trip to the Dominican Republic with his family. 

Federal agents held Makled for 90 minutes, questioning him about his clients. They also tried to get Makled to give up his phone, which he refused to do, but agents did look at his contact list, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Makled was ultimately released without incident, but his detention is an indication of Donald Trump’s growing assault on attorneys taking cases he is against. The president has already issued executive orders penalizing five of the country’s top law firms, as well as a memo to the Justice Department directing the agency to punish immigration attorneys supposedly perpetuating fraud in the system.  

“This current administration is doing something that no administration has done—they are attacking attorneys,” Makled told the Press. “This is a different type of threat to the rule of law that I see. They are now challenging the judiciary, or lawyers, they’re putting pressure (on them) to dissuade attorneys from taking on issues that are against the government’s issues. We have an obligation as lawyers to stand up to this stuff.”

Trump’s punishment of law firms, which is a move out of the autocrat’s handbook, comes amid a larger crackdown on free speech and any sign—personal or institutional—of Palestinian solidarity. In recent weeks, several international students involved in pro-Palestine protests have been unlawfully kidnapped and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and nearly 300 international students have had their visas revoked for similar reasons.

Makled’s client, Samantha Lewis, is an American citizen and one of seven pro-Palestine protesters arrested at the University of Michigan last spring. The 38-year-old attorney is unsure whether this case is what triggered his detention Sunday, but he told the Press he will not stay silent despite the White House’s intimidation strategy.

“I have to be a person who can speak out when your rights are violated. We have to be the balancing act. We’re a nation of laws. You gotta have lawyers,” he said.

Trump’s Justice Department  is going to pull back on prosecuting cryptocurrency fraud, according to a memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The memo, sent to the Justice Department Monday, states that the DOJ won’t be pursuing cases that Blanche said are better suited for financial regulators, instead focusing on crimes committed with cryptocurrency, such as selling illegal drugs, The Washington Post reports.  

Blanche also plans to dismantle the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which was set up in 2022 to “address the challenge posed by the criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.” The move throttles an enforcement team that has successfully prosecuted market manipulation schemes and attempts to hide the owners of crypto assets. The unit was already hampered by the fact that in the Trump administration’s first days, its leader was transferred to a new sanctuary cities division in the DOJ. 

Now other attorneys previously focused on cryptocurrency will instead focus on immigration crimes and procurement fraud, the memo states, although federal prosecutors will still be directed to bring cases against people who defraud investors.

The shift away from prosecuting crypto crimes is not surprising for the Trump administration. The president has long cozied up to cryptocurrency investors, and even engaged in some shady crypto transactions of his own, such as his deal with Justin Sun, a Chinese national accused of fraud. Trump and his wife, Melania, have also released their own memecoins.

The president’s announcement last month of a new national “crypto strategic reserve” smacks of a blatant ploy to make some of his cronies richer, and the Trump family has reportedly held talks about taking a financial stake into Binance, a cryptocurrency firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering. It seems that Trump and his cronies are looking to profit from cryptocurrency and want pesky regulations and law enforcement out of the way.