MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace expressed sorrow on Tuesday over the Trump administration deporting alleged Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador.
During a recent episode of "The Bulwark" podcast, Wallace mentioned the deportations as the thing that scared her most about President Donald Trump’s second term, saying she was "gutted" when seeing a photo of alleged gang members being housed in a prison in El Salvador.
"I saw the paid ads that Homeland Security was doing in front of the deportees who were now prisoners at CECOT [Terrorism Confinement Center] and I was gutted," she told host Tim Miller.
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President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March to expedite deportations of suspected Tren de Aragua gang members, invoking anger from critics who have said there is insufficient evidence to determine their ties to the gang.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended the deportations, with DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin saying that the migrants sent to CECOT in El Salvador are "actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more" and that the administration is abiding by due process.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in March, "I trust our intelligence agencies and the intelligence individuals that are within the Department of Homeland Security, that the individuals who are there are members and a part of this organization and have worked with them."
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The deportation approach has faced legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court barred the Trump administration from deporting migrants without them being given a chance to challenge their designations as criminal gang members in April, and extended that order in May.
During the interview, Wallace denied there was any evidence whether the people Trump had been trying to deport were gang members.
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"I remember the first day I read about the deportations to El Salvador of the alleged Tren de Aragua members — for whom no evidence was ever presented that they had anything to do with Tren de Aragua," she said. "And I remember saying… like ‘I wish I didn’t feel so gutted. And I wish I could stop thinking about these guys being scared in El Salvador.’"
After mentioning feeling terrible about seeing the photos that DHS posted of suspected gang members being held at CECOT, the MSNBC host accused the administration of mistreating human beings.
"And I think I’m sometimes scared by how much anguish I feel over how they’re treating human beings. But I think that if you abandon the anguish, then you carry out horrible things against human beings," Wallace said, adding, "I’m scared about how much it bothers me — that so many people are suffering."
When asked for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital, "Cry more, Nicole Wallace. Only a TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] whack job would be ‘gutted’ that illegal criminal terrorists are being removed from the country but fail to mention the American victims of these heinous criminals."
