It’s no secret President Trump is passionate about cracking down on what he describes as an ‘invasion’ of immigrants in the US, making it a top priority for his second term in the White House as soon as he was sworn into office on January 20.
To this end, he signed a series of executive orders to ‘reclaim control’ of the borders and has gone on to re-ignite a piece of wartime legislation to support his vision of mass deportations.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a relatively unknown 18th century law that was used in World War Two to justify internment camps, has enabled the Trump administration to deport migrants who have been accused of crimes while bypassing legal proceedings like court challenges.
At least 137 people have been removed under the Act already, and the Supreme Court gave the green light on the plan – albeit with caution, as justices said deportees must be given the chance to challenge their removal.
As many as 261 people accused of being involved in the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua or the MS-13 gang have also been shipped out of the US and into the infamous El Salvador mega-jail CECOT with the help of the law.
Addressing the matter on live television in Washington DC this week, Trump made a bit of a confusing mix-up between immigrants claiming political asylum in the US – and ‘people from mental institutions’.
Talking about the immigrants that have been deported, he said: “Many of them were murders, and drug lords, and thieves, and people from prisons from all over the world, and they were people from mental institutions, insane asylums.
“They were taking their mentally insane and they were dumping them into our country.”
He said the authorities are doing a ‘fantastic job’ in removing them and celebrated the Supreme Court for ‘giving us numerous good rulings’.
“We had other judges trying to take over,” he continued, referring to lower court attempts to block the deportations prior to the Supreme Court decision. “They wanted these people coming back.”
But viewers spotted that the POTUS seemed to blur asylum seekers with people from insane asylums and took to Twitter to slam the embarrassing mistake.
“Trump still hasn’t figured out political asylum and insane asylums are two different things,” one wrote.
A second wrote: “Honestly, based on his speeches lately, I’m not sure he knows the difference between asylum and aluminum.”
“I would LOVE for a reporter to say to him, ‘you know asylum seekers aren’t from mental asylums right?'”, a third added.
A fourth chimed: “Oh my god he thinks Asylum Seekers are insane people because of the word asylum LMAO.”
“To be fair it was a big day for him,” another said, “He just learned what tariffs do. Progress.”
