Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) attacked President Donald Trump over the weekend for using the law to deport members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua terrorist organization.
Crockett made the remarks after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport members of the hyper-violent organization on Saturday.
“That gang is obviously associated with a lot of crime, human trafficking, drug dealing theft, shootings, including in your state of Texas, right outside of your congressional district,” Tapper said.
“Do you agree with this?” he asked. “And, if not, what’s your issue with the U.S. using any tool at its disposal to remove undocumented violent people from this country?”
Crockett responded by claiming that the law did not need to be used because “we already have tools that are available to remove undocumented violent people from our country.”
She then attacked the law as a “zombie law” while simultaneously claiming that the administration needed to follow the law.
“And so the idea that you want to go into a zombie law — this is kind of like what we saw in Arizona when they decided to revive a zombie law around abortion — it is the fact that we can’t trust this administration to actually use a scalpel, but instead they love to use a butcher knife on things,” she said.
“And so giving them this wide latitude to just kind of go across and just claim that anybody is anything is wrong,” she continued. “And so we do have courts, we do have processes, we do have laws, and we should just go ahead and use those. There’s a reason that nobody else has decided to go back until — into Adams’ times in order to try to find ways to make sure that we can keep our country safe.”
WATCH:
Pressed on Trump seeking wartime authority to deport Venezuelan gang members, @RepJasmine tells @jaketapper, "We can't trust this administration to actually use a scalpel, but instead they love to use a butcher knife." pic.twitter.com/MfjaOyfJ3o
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) March 16, 2025
