White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has defended U.S. President Donald Trump‘s tweet in which he said that people who enter the U.S. illegally should be returned to their countries of origin without seeing a judge or going through courts.
Trump tweeted Sunday that people who “invade” the U.S. from Mexico illegally should be promptly sent back without due process.
“Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process,” Sanders said in a press conference Monday.
“Thousands of illegal aliens are removed every month without seeing an immigration judge as a result of procedures in current law, including voluntary removal and expedited removal.”
Expedited removal is a process by which illegal immigrants are removed from the U.S. without undergoing court proceedings or seeing a judge, a process that Sanders said the Trump administration was hoping to expand.
READ MORE: No clear plans yet to reunite immigrant parents with their children in U.S.
President Trump is determined to secure America’s borders and “fix our immigration program completely, not just tinker with it,” Sanders added, before blaming Democrats for wanting open borders, and pointing the finger at Congress for not doing enough to pass tougher immigration legislation.