GOP committee vote didn’t ‘allow’ Trump to deport U.S. citizens; Democrats mislead on amendment vote

As judges issued rulings critical of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation policies, Democrats took to social media to paint Republican lawmakers as supportive of deporting U.S. citizens.

"Republicans just voted in the House Judiciary Committee to allow Trump to DEPORT U.S. citizens to a foreign country," Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., wrote in an April 30 X post.

Other Democrats, including Reps. Daniel Goldman of New York and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, also criticized the House Judiciary vote, saying it showed Republicans voting to deport American citizens.

"Read that again," Goldman wrote on Facebook the same day. "DEPORT AMERICAN CITIZENS. … Shameful and despicable." 

The lawmakers’ posts referred to an April 30 House Judiciary Committee amendment that would have barred federal funds from being used to deport U.S. citizens. The amendment, proposed by Democrats, failed after every Republican present voted against it.

However, voting as the Republicans did, to reject the amendment didn’t hand Trump the legal right to deport U.S. citizens, as the Democratic lawmakers’ statements said. Existing case law prohibits that, and changing that would require more than just a House committee vote.

Swalwell’s office did not respond to inquiries for this article. In a statement, Jayapal’s office cited a recent case of two U.S. citizen children who were deported with their noncitizen mother. "It’s the law that U.S. citizens cannot be deported, but that is what’s happening," Jayapal’s office told PolitiFact in a statement. "Voting for the amendment would have reaffirmed current law. Republicans, however, gave Trump tacit approval to continue by refusing to vote for legislation that would outright block their ability" to deport citizens.

Why is there discussion of deporting U.S. citizens?

In two cases involving two mothers in late April, a total of three U.S.-born citizen children were brought to Honduras when their mothers were deported. In one case that’s now being challenged in court, the government argued that the children’s mother, who was in the U.S. illegally, consented to the childrens’ deportation instead of splitting up the family. 

However, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled April 25 that the government failed to adequately document the mother’s decision and called for a new hearing in May. The judge wrote that deporting citizens is not allowed under U.S. law.

At least a dozen American citizens have been swept up in Trump administration immigration enforcement actions short of deportation, The Washington Post reported. These citizens were detained in the U.S, and sometimes kept behind bars, before being released.

In at least two public appearances, Trump said he is open to deporting U.S. citizens to foreign prisons. 

When a reporter on April 6 asked Trump on Air Force One if he was "willing to take American citizens in the federal prison population" to be imprisoned in El Salvador, Trump replied, "I love that. If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways, and that hit people over the back of the head, and that purposely run people over in cars. If (El Salvador President Nayib Bukele) would take them, I'd be honored to give 'em. I don't know what the law says on that."

And in a public appearance with Bukele, whose prisons have accepted U.S. deportees, Trump said, "The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You've got to build about five more places." 

What the committee vote was about

The House Judiciary Committee’s April 30 vote came during a hearing known as a "markup," or detailed consideration, of the budget resolution portions under the committee’s purview that guide federal spending priorities for the next fiscal year. 

Republicans control all House committees, but the Democratic minority is allowed to propose amendments. In the April 30 hearing, they offered several.

One of them, proposed by Jayapal, said, "None of the funds made available by this subtitle may be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain or deport a United States citizen."

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"Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, I hope we can all agree that U.S. citizens should never be detained by ICE or any agency conducting civil immigration enforcement," Jayapal said. "They certainly should not be deported." 

Republicans on the committee did not argue against the amendment. When the vote was called (at around 2:55:00 in the official video) they voted it down on party lines.

What does the vote result mean?

In Congress, it is common for one party’s lawmakers to offer amendments that put their opponents in the hot seat, forcing them to cast a vote that can be used against them later in campaign ads or social media attacks.

But the Republicans’ decision to vote down the amendment "does not explicitly allow citizens to be deported," said Steven Smith, an Arizona State University political scientist and an expert on congressional procedure.

The committee vote "leaves the issue of deportation of U.S. citizens to current law, the administration, and the courts," Smith said. Only if the administration seeks to deport citizens and successfully defends that policy all the way to the Supreme Court "would have the effect that Swalwell claims," Smith said.

Our ruling

Swalwell said, "Republicans just voted in the House Judiciary Committee to allow Trump to DEPORT U.S. citizens to a foreign country."

Republicans voted down a budget amendment that would have prohibited federal money from being used by immigration officials to detain or deport U.S. citizens. 

Democrats argued that by not passing it, Republicans failed to send a message to Trump that they don’t approve of his actions and statements involving citizen deportation.

But if it had passed, the amendment would not have handed Trump the legal right to deport U.S. citizens, as Swalwell’s post said. Current case law bars the deportation of U.S. citizens. Overturning that would require the Supreme Court — not one committee of one chamber of Congress — to decide the issue.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.