Robert Garcia: Dems Are 'Hopeful' About Legal Challenges Against Trump Admin's Deportation Efforts

On Sunday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) spoke about Democrats' lawsuits against the Trump Administration's deportation efforts.

Transcript

00:00Well, first, I think this is, it's both infuriating, and we should all just be angered and upset

00:07about what's actually happening right now. The number is actually now nearing over 800

00:11students that we know of from across the country. Just here at a local university,

00:15my own district, there's six students that have been deported. All six, by the way,

00:21have no idea why their actual student visas were actually revoked. No clue. Homeland Security

00:27won't tell them. And so this is a huge concern, of course, for us Democrats on Homeland Security,

00:33all of us in Congress. We, of course, are trying to push against Secretary Noem, but at the end of

00:38the day, they are doing whatever they want, and they could care less what judges are saying,

00:43what Congress is saying, and they're acting on what I think is a horrific policy around

00:48immigration, especially for students. And we also know that they're targeting students for free

00:52speech. So it's not just a traffic violation, or it's not just claiming that they maybe have done

00:58something that, and giving them no due process to defend themselves, but also other students for

01:03free speech. So we should all be incredibly concerned that we are demanding answers from

01:07Homeland Security. Well, look, we're obviously fighting as tough as we can, pushing back.

01:12We've asked Secretary Noem to testify in front of Homeland Security. She's refused to do so.

01:17We're asking the Trump administration officials to also come in front of us and testify.

01:21They're refusing to give us any more information. So we're working directly with the students,

01:25with the universities. And the most important thing we have in front of us are the courts. So

01:28we, along with others, are filing numerous lawsuits. In fact, Democrats have won about

01:33half of the legal cases against those and the administration. So we're very hopeful. You heard

01:37about one case right before in the segment before. We're hopeful that and other cases will lead to

01:41these students actually coming back to the United States, or at least having some type of due process.

01:46Tons of concerns. I mean, first, look, the people that have been dismissed or removed from this

01:52process have been career civil servants, people that have been working at our agencies, at Treasury,

01:56at other places for years. To have someone basically plucked from Elon Musk's special team,

02:02who has had no experience working at Treasury or our departments, actually doing this work and

02:07managing this type of data and systems, should be very concerning. The system that you're talking

02:12about, that was talked about by this judge, is the key system that manages almost all of our flow

02:17of federal dollars. And we're going to put someone that has not worked in Treasury, plucked from Elon

02:23Musk, the richest man on the planet, with numerous federal contracts in front of him and in front of

02:29all of our agencies, now in charge and having access to people's personal information. We should

02:34all be incredibly concerned about that. And I think that, look, this person, for all we know,

02:39maybe a very smart person, that's fine. But in having no experience in the government and then

02:44letting go the career civil servants that could actually be there as a check and balance, letting

02:50go, by the way, inspector generals at all of our agencies, that would be the check and balance to

02:55anything, any malfeasance or abuse that may happen, is what concerns all of us across the Congress.

03:01And I would hope that Republicans would join Democrats and stand up and call this out as well.