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As Americans reel from the Trump administration’s violent raids and plead Democrats for action, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) announced on Thursday that his big demand for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill is to bar the agency from deporting U.S. citizens — a practice that is already illegal.

In a press conference on Thursday, Jeffries said that he believes Democrats must demand “an explicit prohibition that DHS cannot detain or deport American citizens, period.” Ahead of the press conference, he told reporters that the Democratic caucus is making this their demand in order to win the caucus’s support for the DHS funding bill.

As many critics swiftly pointed out, it is already illegal for DHS to deport U.S. citizens. DHS is not given the authority to deport citizens aside from in fringe cases.

“It’s already illegal to deport US citizens. A ‘ban’ on doing that wouldn’t change the law,” said American Immigration Council fellow and........

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