Pramila Jayapal Hits Trump: 'If You Don't Like Nationwide Injunctions, Stop Doing The Illegal Stuff'

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At a House Judiciary Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) defended the nationwide injunctions against President Trump.

Transcript

00:00Consider that the very reason that Donald Trump has faced more nationwide injunctions than Joe

00:05Biden is precisely because Trump is grabbing unprecedented power from Congress and from the

00:12judiciary, power that is not accorded to any president because we do not have kings in this

00:18country. If you try to eliminate birthright citizenship, jail people for free speech,

00:24slash funding and fire people, and eliminate departments that are actually established by

00:29Congress, if you try to use Cold War era regulations to do mass deportations, then yeah, you're going to

00:35get nationwide injunctions. So maybe if you don't like the injunctions, stop doing the illegal stuff.

00:42The argument that the judiciary has run amok is a very convenient political argument that's being

00:49weaponized to eliminate the fundamental checks and balances that our founders put in place to protect

00:54the independence of the judiciary from the political branches of government. If there are threats to

01:00the independence of the judiciary, they come when unelected billionaires try to buy court seats. They

01:06come when there is no ethics code that stops justices from being captured by special interests. The lower

01:13courts have played a critical role in this independence from political systems, delivering results that people

01:19from both parties have liked and disliked. During the Obama and Biden administration, lower courts did rule

01:25against the government in cases dealing with student debt relief and DACA. Courts have also ruled in favor

01:31of guns, religious liberty, and abortion restrictions. Democrats may not have liked those rulings, but we did not

01:38simply try to eliminate those courts or impeach those judges. And did you ever hear Republicans complaining

01:45about the judiciary when those favorable rulings were coming about? Of course not. One of the most

01:51important roles of an independent judiciary is upholding civil rights and liberties. The judiciary

01:56is often the last line of defense for protecting the vulnerable from the powerful and the minority from

02:02the majority. This is particularly true when it comes to immigration. Last night, we learned that the

02:08Trump administration mistakenly deported a father with protected legal status. This is the

02:15latest amongst numerous questionable deportations, including men being deported for having tattoos,

02:21for autism awareness, and the names of close family members. Trump's basis for these deportations is the

02:28Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This statute authorizes the president to detain and deport non-citizens when there

02:35is, quote, a declared war or an invasion or predatory incursion, end quote, by a, quote, foreign nation or

02:44government. Professor Shaw, could you briefly explain why the courts have determined why there is no

02:50appropriate basis for Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act? Well, I should say it's all in a very

02:56preliminary posture. But Judge Boseberg issued his initial temporary restraining order essentially on the

03:03grounds that individuals who were subject to this deportation on the basis of this invocation of a, you know,

03:091798 statute that has been used three times in our history, needed some opportunity to contest or present

03:16evidence before being sent to prisons in El Salvador. So this was, just to be really clear,

03:22Judge Boseberg did not order anyone's release inside the United States. Everyone is able to stay in U.S.

03:28custody. It was simply a determination that the basic demands of due process were not suspended by the

03:33invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. And why are those due process rights so important in the

03:38immigration context in particular? Well, so I think that the example that you gave,

03:43Congresswoman, of this reporting we saw last night of an individual who appears to have been

03:47incorrectly seized and sent to a prison, you know, maybe there was some other basis but not the

03:54specific Alien Enemies Act invocation basis for deporting him, makes clear that the stakes kind of

04:00couldn't be higher than in the immigration context, especially if we're talking about

04:03not just detention but deportation and expulsion. So, you know, due process protects us from being

04:10summarily deprived of life, liberty, or property. And, you know, those interests in some ways are at

04:15their highest when we're talking about the government taking custody and potentially expelling an

04:20individual. And this law was used, wasn't it? It was invoked by President Franklin D. Roosevelt

04:25to detain 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II? That's right. It was part of

04:31the basis of the detention and internment of Japanese Americans. And so these actions don't

04:35just affect foreigners. What's at stake are constitutional rights for all Americans? Can you

04:40explain to any American who might be watching this hearing why they should be concerned about their

04:46rights given what the Trump administration is doing? Right. I mean, I think that the Constitution

04:50is the only thing standing between any of us and being summarily placed on a plane. And judges are

04:57the ones who are often in the position of enforcing those constitutional rights. So this is not about

05:02protecting an other, right? This is about protecting all of us. And if the administration is not duty-bound

05:10to respect the basic requirements of the Constitution with respect to these individuals, it's not clear why

05:15it's duty-bound to respect those rights as to any of us. I think that is a very important point. And I

05:21think we should be focusing our attention on how to best preserve our independent judiciary, not

05:26delegitimize it. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to submit an article, seek unanimous consent to submit an article

05:31for the record. This is from The Atlantic. An administrative error sends a Maryland father to a

05:38Salvadorian prison. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. I yield back.

05:42The General Lady yields back.

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