15-05-2025
‘So what?': Gorka dismisses judge rulings on deportations
A top White House counterterrorism official denied that the United States is skirting due process in its treatment of cartel members, and dismissed moves by federal judges to block deportations of suspected drug traffickers.
Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council's director of counterterrorism, insisted at POLITICO's Security Summitthat gang members were subject to special national security laws rather than the normal rights of people accused in the U.S. — including a criminal trial — and that federal judges whose rulings disputed that notion were incorrect.
'Well so what? Could they be wrong? Could a judge possibly be wrong?' Gorka said. 'If you're a terrorist of a [foreign terrorist organization], it's not a traffic ticket. You don't go to county court, you're a member of a federally designated terrorist organization. It's really that simple. If you're a wife beater and a human trafficker, goodbye.'
Gorka's comments follow decisions by federal judges that have contradicted President Donald Trump's deportations of suspected gang members not yet convicted of a crime.
But he was referring specifically to the high-profile case of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration has accused of being a member of the MS-13, which it has designated a foreign terrorist organization. Officials have also accused him of having "involvement" in human trafficking. He has not been charged with a crime.
Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally around 2011 and lived in Maryland for more than a decade. He was deported from the U.S. in March and sent to a prison in El Salvador. He currently remains there, although the Supreme Court has upheld a lower court's order to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. due to a legal directive preventing his deportation because of threats to his life.
The U.S. designated eight cartels and criminal organizations as foreign terrorist organizations in February, a strong sanction that allows American authorities to remove suspected members from the country in certain circumstances.
'When an organization is designated by the secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organization, every single stinking member is a terrorist by U.S. law,' Gorka said. 'There is no need for them to be adjudicated as a terrorist.'
Since the administration has designated cartels and gangs as terror groups, Trump has not made an end-around due process rights, Gorka said. 'Due process has never been skirted; this is another fake news canard,' he said, criticizing POLITICO's coverage of the case.
The groups listed by the Trump administration include Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua. Gorka said that as many as 110,000 Americans die from illicit drugs imported by criminal gangs annually, including fentanyl.
'We have tens of thousands of criminals here,' Gorka said, but did not provide specifics on how the Trump administration is identifying suspected gang members. 'We actually treat these people as illegals. We're going to use the full force of the law to identify, neutralize, and remove them.'
