Trump administration says deported migrants are gang members, but won’t name them or provide evidence

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants while refusing to reveal their identities or the evidence against them, prompting complaints from the migrants’ families and from critics who say the administration is trampling on civil liberties.

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants while refusing to reveal their identities or the evidence against them, prompting complaints from the migrants’ families and from critics who say the administration is trampling on civil liberties. The administration says its invocation of a rarely used wartime authority to speed up deportations serves to protect Americans from the “extraordinary threat” posed by suspected gang members who the president has designated as foreign terrorists. But administration officials have provided little information that could allow outsiders to independently assess its claims that scores of immigrants who were deported from the country last weekend are affiliated with violent gangs or have extensive criminal records. Some relatives of the presumed deported migrants, meanwhile, have described a murky and ham-fisted process that disappeared people they say have no ties to organized crime, leaving them isolated from loved ones and legal advocates. Asked Wednesday by a reporter why the administration wouldn’t share basic information about the detainees, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration would not “reveal operational details about a counter-terrorism operation,” but added it has “the highest degree of confidence in our ICE agents.” Yet earlier in that same briefing, Leavitt touted the capture in Mexico of Francisco Javier Román-Bardales, an alleged senior member of MS-13 who is expected to be delivered to the United States to face charges that include conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.