At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “innocent people” are being “torture[d] and deport[ed]” because of President Donald Trump’s use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
Duckworth asked Rubio if he would “encourage” the president to “rescind” the invocation of a presidential authority from 1798 to deport or detain citizens of enemy nations, which the president summoned to fight criminal Tren de Aragua gang members.
Rubio, however, was quick to defend the administration’s use of the act to deport criminal gang members.
“These groups have waged war on the United States,” Rubio said. “Tren de Aragua is not just a criminal gang presence in our streets, they are a criminal gang directly responsible for narco-trafficking.”
During his response, Rubio suggested that Duckworth was confusing the military operation against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act against criminal drug gangs such as Tren de Aragua.
The senator, however, raised her voice and asked a similar question.
“Again, I want to ask you, the vast majority of the men that were rounded up and deported for torture under this law had no criminal record whatsoever,” she stated. “Will you advise the president to rescind his invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act?”
“Of course not,” Rubio responded. “I mean, these are people that are threats to the national security of the United States.”
The senator interrupted the secretary once more and implied that the United States is engaged in an unauthorized war because it is taking action against drug cartels.
“So, you’re saying that we are at war?” the senator interrupted.
Rubio responded that the United States has not declared war, but that the narco-traffickers are “waging war against us, and they’re enemy combatants as a result of it.”
“And the fact of the matter is that we are confronting these irregular groups,” Rubio said.
Duckworth proceeded to claim that the Alien Enemies Act is being used to “torture” people, to which Rubio responded by saying it is a baseless claim from the senator.
“Who did we torture?” Rubio questioned. “We haven’t tortured anybody. We’ve arrested people who are members of gangs.”
Rubio then told the senator she is asking him a question that does not belong in the hearing, since it falls “in the realm of the Department of Justice.”
“I’m here to discuss foreign policy from the Department of State,” Rubio said. “You’re asking me a question about the justification of a law that is best directed to the Department of Justice.”
