WASHINGTON — The Trump administration's plot to ship migrants to war-torn Ukraine alarmed a lawmaker on Capitol Hill on Wednesday who called the plan "deeply disturbing."
The Trump administration has suggested deporting certain migrants from the U.S. to Ukraine, including people who are not Ukrainian citizens.
In late January, a senior U.S. diplomat asked Ukrainian officials to accept some deportees who were nationals from elsewhere. The eyebrow-raising request comes as Ukraine fights Russia's invasion, and despite the country lacking a functioning airport due to ongoing airstrikes.
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Ukrainian officials said the plan did not reach the highest levels of government and the request wasn't taken seriously. So far, Ukraine has not accepted any such deportees.
The request aligns with the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, slammed the Trump administration on Wednesday, telling Raw Story he saw a headline about deportees possibly being sent to Ukraine.
"It's deeply distressing and disturbing to think that there would be a time in this country where we would find the worst places to deport people to instead of places where they came from. Their homelands. Not sending them back their but sending them to the worst location we could send them to just to punish them," he said.
Johnson added it's equally as unsettling that President Donald Trump has "bandied the idea" of housing American citizens in the same "foreign gulags."
Johnson accused Trump of trying to build up a fervor to increase the incarceration population to enrich his "billionaire buddies."
But Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) had a different take when it comes to sending U.S. citizens to foreign prisons. While he claimed he hadn't heard Trump wanted to send migrants to countries such as Libya, Norman defended the MAGA leader.
"Whatever Trump does will make sense and will put America first," Norman told Raw Story.