Scholars, activists blast Trump tweets ripping due process for undocumented immigrants

John Bacon | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump stops family separation, but continues ‘zero tolerance’ Amid public outcry over the thousands of migrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep families together. Here’s a wrap-up of everything that led to this moment.

President Donald Trump doubled down Monday on his weekend tweet suggesting that undocumented immigrants be sent home without a hearing despite intense blowback from legal scholars, activists and Democrats.

"Hiring many thousands of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go - will always be disfunctional," Trump tweeted Monday.

He tweeted that people who don't pass through a port of entry "simply must be stopped at the border" and told they cannot come into the country illegally. That would stop illegal immigration "in it’s tracks - and at very little, by comparison, cost," Trump tweeted. "This is the only real answer - and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!"

The Constitution could get in the way of Trump's plans to cut legal corners, says legal scholar Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

"Congressional legislation and the Constitution mandate due process for the people Trump mentions," Tobias told USA TODAY. "Congress would need to legislate what Trump says he wants, and this seems unlikely. Even were Congress to pass legislation, federal courts would probably find that it violates the Constitution."

More: Trump wants to send undocumented immigrants back without hearings

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Trump drew outrage after his tweet Sunday that "when somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came." Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, emphatically agreed with Tobias that Trump's plan is illegal and unconstitutional.

"Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally," Jadwat said.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, called Trump's tweet an "affront to our values" and said all Americans should be outraged.

"This clear call for an end to the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process is symptomatic of an administration that disdains both the Constitution and our judicial system," Awad said, adding that such dismissal of due process "would subject those who cross our borders to the whims of unaccountable officials acting on the twisted logic of white supremacy and racism."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, visited areas along the Texas border on Sunday. She said she believes that a woman who flees her country with her child and begs for asylum, "she deserves a fair hearing."

"I believe that every human being has worth," Warren said. "We must do better."

Trump also took a shot Monday at the media coverage of his policies – "the same immigration policies" of the Obama administration.

"Actually, we have done a far better job in that our facilities are cleaner and better run than were the facilities under Obama," Trump tweeted. "Fake News is working overtime!"