President Donald Trump co-signed the theory that judges upholding migrants’ legal rights are engaged in a form of “judicial insurrection.”
During an interview with Glenn Beck, the conservative pundit asked the president if he agreed with Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s assessment that judges demanding due process for deportees amounts to insurrection.
“Yeah, I think you could say that,” Trump replied.
“Andrew Jackson took care of this constitutionally. Would you consider taking care of this some way or another with the judges—in a constitutional way?” Beck continued.
“Well, I hope we don’t have that problem,” Trump said. “But when you have to get out and do court cases for individual people, and you would have in theory millions of court cases… They’re really saying you’re not allowed to do what I was elected to do.”
Their conversation seemed to conflate two separate issues: general due process for migrants and judges’ rulings against specific legal challenges to Trump’s immigration policies.
During his campaign, Trump promised to deport “millions” of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America. His administration has vowed to take a “shock and awe” approach to deportations, and upon taking office in January, the president declared a national emergency at the border.
He then signed executive orders aiming to expand the expedited removal process, deny federal funds to sanctuary cities, end legal status programs for migrants from certain countries, and enlist the military and local enforcement officers to help with immigration enforcement.
But the officials have since run into legal, logistical and financial hurdles.
For one thing, “shock and awe” strategies such as sending military planes full of migrants to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba turned out to be inefficient and expensive. For another, deporting millions of people would require a major infusion of cash from Congress, which so far hasn’t materialized.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement actually deported slightly fewer immigrants in March 2025 than in March 2024: 12,300 compared to 12,700, NBC News reported.
In response, administration officials have apparently seized on the federal judiciary as a possible scapegoat.
Trump and his team have attacked the judges overseeing dozens of lawsuits challenging the administration’s immigration policies and have called for a wholesale rejection of due process for migrants.
Without due process, the government can round up whomever it wants and deport them without any oversight.
They could be refugees, legal immigrants, asylum seekers, or even U.S. citizens, and instead of being deported, they could be disappeared to internal black sites, as historians and legal scholars have pointed out.
As a result, even conservative Supreme Court justices—including Antonin Scalia—have held that the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right to due process applies to deportation hearings, though the definition of due process can vary depending on the circumstances.
The past six weeks have revealed the practical dangers of deporting planes full of people before a judge has had a chance to confirm their identities.
On March 15, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which gives the president sweeping war-time deportation powers, and claimed the U.S. had been “invaded” by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered a group of 250 Venezuelan and Salvadoran “gang members” be deported to the notorious mega-prison CECOT in El Salvador.
One of those men was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was deported due to an “administrative error.” An immigration judge had granted Abrego Garcia, who fled his native El Salvador at age 16 due to threats of gang violence, legally protected status.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on April 10 that the U.S. government must “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador,” but the administration has refused to say what steps—if any—it is taking to bring him home.
Press reports and legal filings have also revealed that the other alleged gang members included at least one man who had been granted legal refugee status, plus a pro soccer player, a gay makeup artist, a 26-year-old barber, and a 24-year-old father—all with no criminal records in the U.S. and all formally seeking asylum.
The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed on April 7 that the Alien Enemies Act deportees were “entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal,” but ruled in a 5-4 split that deportations under the 1798 law could continue.
Trump, however, said the courts shouldn’t be interfering with his deportation plans.
“If you have one court case, it takes forever. Millions of court cases?” he told Beck. “They put them into our country… and now we have to go to court to get them out? I don’t think the people of our country are gonna stand for it.”
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