Senator James Lankford (R-OK) is facing fierce backlash from conservatives after appearing on CNN and appearing to contradict President Donald Trump’s tough stance on illegal immigration and due process for non-citizens.
Lankford, who represents Oklahoma — the state that voted more Republican than any other in the 2024 presidential election — seemed to question the urgency and scale of Trump’s planned deportation agenda. The Oklahoma senator, already under fire for previously co-sponsoring a bipartisan immigration proposal that critics dubbed mass amnesty, is once again in the hot seat with the GOP base.
“What’s been confusing on this is some people see due process like as an American citizen. That’s a right to a jury trial. That’s all those different things. That’s not true for due process for someone who’s not a citizen of the United States,” Lankford said during the interview. “It’s a different process.”
Lankford continued, “It’s often just literally what people call an immigration judge is not a typical federal judge or a state judge. This is someone that’s in the bureaucracy that their task for DHS is that task on it. So they’re a government employee career that’s an immigration judge.”
“So it’s a very different process for it,” he told CNN, “but yes there is a — there’s a need to be able to give an opportunity for someone to be able to make an argument before they’re… removed in the country.”
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“No, Senator. They didn’t want to follow our immigration process. They don’t get to pick and choose,” one user wrote.
In his second term, President Trump has taken aggressive steps to enforce immigration laws and crack down on illegal entry. His own position on the issue was made clear during an NBC “Meet the Press” interview earlier this month, when he was asked whether every person in the U.S., including illegal immigrants, is entitled to due process.
“I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump said when asked if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “yes, of course” answer to the same question. Instead, Trump emphasized the need for speed and decisiveness when dealing with the current immigration surge.
Central to the conversation is the issue of due process, with critics claiming that the administration is bypassing constitutional protections. The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport non-citizens from countries deemed hostile or unstable, such as Venezuela and El Salvador.
President Trump has also raised questions about whether illegal immigrants are automatically entitled to the same legal protections as U.S. citizens, a stance that aligns with a more literal reading of constitutional authority. While opponents claim these actions violate civil liberties, courts are still weighing in.
