Consider This from NPR - Can the U.S. banish its citizens?

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

The Trump administration's move to send immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador is the subject of multiple on-going fights in court. But in an Oval Office meeting with the Salvadoran president this week, President Trump was already looking ahead."We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country," Trump said.Trump later clarified that by "homegrown criminals" he meant U.S. citizens.No president has tried to do exactly what Trump is proposing. In this episode, we hear from someone who argues it's wildly unconstitutional.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Nat. Matt Ford has been thinking lately about his eleventh great-grandparents. Matt Ford, Early settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They lived in what is now Essex County. Nat. Their names were Lawrence and Cassandra Southick. Ford discovered the connection with his ancestors when he started digging into his genealogy as a hobby a few years ago. The Southicks' story was interesting because they were Quakers living under a very puritan government so they were banished from the community. Pete It was for being Quakers, yeah. The court levied it as a formal punishment, maybe under

blasphemy or heresy laws. I don't know the exact statute they would have cited, but that was the general purpose of it. Danielle They fled to Shelter Island in New York. Pete According to their memorial, according to some of the records that survived, they died of exposure and maltreatment shortly thereafter. They were already elderly when it happened, so it was probably quite an ordeal for them to be removed from their community and sent elsewhere. Danielle Pletka It was a sentence of banishment that became a de facto death sentence, it sounds like.

Mark Bailey More or less, yeah. I think that, you know, for people who are banished from their community, it amounts to sort of civil death, which is why you usually see legal commentators refer to it as sort of one step below the death penalty. Danielle Pletka Matt Ford is a staff writer at The New Republic, and he has been thinking about the Suddocks because banishment is suddenly back on the table. Danielle Pletka How many illegal criminals are you planning

on exporting to El Salvador? And President Bukele, how many are you willing to take from the U. How many illegal criminals are you planning on exporting to El Salvador? And President Bukele, how many are you willing to take from the U.S.? As many as possible. President Trump has already sent clean loads of immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador for indefinite detention. The legality of that move is being fought out in the courts. But at an Oval Office meeting with the Salvadoran president this week, Trump was looking ahead.

I'd like to go a step further. I mean, I say, I said it to Pam. I don't know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country." In other words, exiling U.S. citizens for committing a crime. Which brings us back around to Matt Ford's 11th great-grandparents. In the grand scope of American history, these practices are not unheard of, but they are

also now pretty far disregarded. You know, you look at the colonial era. You had to go way back to your 11th grandparents to find something. 1660s, yeah. And we know that that practice died out before the revolution, and it sort of became verboten thereafter. Consider this. No president has tried to do exactly what Trump is proposing.

But Matt Ford says the law is clear. It would be wildly unconstitutional. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Having news at your fingertips is great, but sometimes you need an escape. And that's where Shortwave comes in. We're a joy-filled science podcast driven by wonder and curiosity that will get you out of your head and in touch with the world around you. Listen now to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Listen now to Shortwave, but the pace of the news will likely continue. Follow NPR's coverage of President Trump trying to do things no other president has, on Trump's terms from NPR.

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Pam is studying. If we can do that, that's good. Matt Ford has been studying the laws on this, too. He reports on the courts for the new republic. And I sat down with him to talk about his new piece looking into the legal and historical precedents for what Trump is proposing. I want to start with the headline for your piece, which reads Trump's wildly unconstitutional plot to banish U.S. citizens to gulags. Wildly unconstitutional? Well, when we speak of things that are constitutional and unconstitutional, it's

not always a bright line. Some of the parts of the constitution are up for interpretation. What is cruel and unusual punishment? What is due process? What is a reasonable search and seizure? Banishment and exile, on the other hand, there really is no basis for that in the constitution or in any federal law. S1 0 As you reported this out, as you called around to various legal experts, you found no one who could see any basis for this in the Constitution?

Michael Svigel Well, it's tough because, you know, on one hand, the courts have never really ruled on it. That's what makes it so striking. Danielle Pletka Because nobody's tried it. Michael Svigel Nobody's done it. And so, you know, I can't find a Supreme Court opinion. I can't point one to you in sight. One where the justices 50 or 100 years ago said banishment is unconstitutional, exile is unconstitutional. But when you look at the grand scope of how the courts think about deportation, extradition, citizenship, it's pretty clear that it would be a disfavored practice. And we know that also from American

history. Danielle Pletka I want to play one other moment from that oval office meeting. This is when President Trump is asked explicitly if he's talking about U.S. citizens. Yeah, yeah, that includes them. Why do you think there's special category of person? They're as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. Matt Ford, are U.S. citizens a special category of person under U.S. law? Constitutionally speaking, in many ways they are. I mean, American citizens are the only ones who can vote. They're the only ones who can serve on juries and they have a automatic right to live in

this country. The general practice is they can't be denied reentry if they leave, which is sort of a constitutional barrier in and of itself to the idea that they would be exiled to a distant land. Danielle Pletka Yeah. There are ways that a US government can legally remove people from the country. There's deportation that applies to non-citizens. Extradition. Yeah, extradition stands out to me as the one truly legal pathway that this could happen.

It's very rare, but it does happen. Basically, the premise is the United States signs a treaty with another country that sets up the framework. Courts then say, you know, you can't deport an American citizen unless there's an explicit requirement in the treaty to do that. The other state has to match US levels of due process, basic rights, so you can't simply send someone to North Korea. I think those would be an impediment against anything Trump is planning for El Salvador, partly because El Salvador does not appear to meet those levels, partly because the 1911 treaty we have with El Salvador is not considered to be legally sufficient at this moment. And also, I think significantly enough, because none of the people that Trump seems to be

envisioning have committed any crimes in El Salvador. The purpose of extradition is to allow somebody to be tried in another country. In the audio earlier, Trump is describing people who have committed crimes solely in the United States. So I don't think that's a viable pathway for anything that Trump is envisioning here. Danielle Pletka I suppose one way around the constitutional protection for US citizens is to take away that citizenship, to denaturalize them. You have found examples of the government trying this in the past.

Matthew 16.00 Sure. Up until about the 1960s, it wasn't axiomatic that citizenship was irrevocable. There was a case in 1922 where a group of Chinese Americans went overseas, returned to the United States. They were denied reentry. And the Supreme Court ruled that they had a right to have a tribunal hearing where they could prove that they were citizens, the premise being that if they were denied reentry. And the Supreme Court ruled that they had a right to have a tribunal hearing where they could prove that they were citizens, the premise being that if they were citizens, they couldn't be denied reentry. We also know from a case in the 1950s where a man was stripped of his citizenship for draft dodging,

he was then put through deportation proceedings. The court struck down that provision of the Immigration Nationality Act that denaturalized him. And they since said in the 1963 case of Ryan V. Rusk that citizenship is more or less irrevocable unless done voluntarily. The sole exception for that is for naturalized citizens who lie during the immigration process. But even then, the Supreme Court set an extremely high threshold for that proceeding to be carried out. Danielle Pletka And so what changed in the 1960s? Well, it's part of the sort of the Warren Court's reforms, but it's also part of a

general recognition of the value of American citizenship and the rights that come with it. You know, when the court speaks of citizenship, they speak of it as almost sacrosanct, as something that defines a person's place in the world, defines their ability to participate in a political community, defines their ability to participate in a political community, defines their ability to have a home. And so I think that the idea that somebody could be exiled from the United States while being a U.S. citizen

cuts against that in the deepest way possible. You write that banishment or exile was a form of punishment in the British Empire? Well, it's interesting because this is the primary American experience with the concept of exile. It comes from the practice, the British love having understated terms for things they used to call it transportation. They would send prisoners who committed crimes in England and they would ship them off to

far flung parts of the British Empire. Australia and New Zealand were the most common targets, but North America was also one as well. And this would invariably cause a certain amount of consternation among Americans, the early colonists, why are you sending these people to us? And so, I think it underscores the unconstitutionality of this and the outside role it plays in the American constitutional tradition that this was something that early Americans opposed from the British crown. Transporting people overseas for offenses was one of the portions of

the Declaration of Independence, one of the grievances against the Crown. So there's a very strong historical tradition here that I think would counsel against any sort of constitutional tolerance for exile. This brings us to the question of whether the Trump administration won't do it anyway, even if sending US citizens to El Salvador or somewhere else is clearly illegal, unconstitutional. I'm thinking of the case currently in the headlines of Kilmar Abrego Garcia being held in El Salvador. Multiple Trump administration officials have said he was sent there by mistake.

He is not a US citizen, but he had been granted protection from deportation by an immigration judge. Right. And he has a right to do process that was not followed there. One of the reasons that I wanted to explore this question and write this piece was because when we talk about things that presidents do, it's important to set context about where that falls on a constitutional spectrum. Presidents do things every day that are perfectly lawful, perfectly constitutional, even if people disagree with them. Presidents from both parties have done things that are in a little more of a gray zone. Maybe they're reinterpreting authority. Maybe they are applying it in a new scenario. Maybe

they are using law in a way Congress didn't intend. That's normal and to be expected. This is not one of those scenarios. This is a scenario where there is no, that I've been able to find, legal or constitutional basis for the idea that you would send someone outside their country of citizenship, outside their country of birth, their nationality, send them to a foreign country that will then hold them indefinitely and deny them the opportunity to return. I can't rule out the possibility that the Trump administration will do it anyways, but I think it's important to set the marker now that there doesn't appear to be any legal or constitutional basis for those actions.

Hostess 1 Matt Ford, staff writer at The New Republic, talking about his new piece, Trump's wildly unconstitutional plot to banish U.S. citizens to gulags. Not Ford, thank you. Thank you for having me. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan. It was edited by Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigen. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.