Whoopi Goldberg has expressed concern that President Donald Trump’s policies could lead to wrongful deportations, including her own.
The View co-host, 69, made the comments during Monday’s episode of the daytime talk show. The Trump administration deported hundreds of alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members to El Salvador despite a federal judge’s order temporarily barring the deportations. The White House has denied that it defied court orders, stating that the deportations were carried out in compliance with existing policies.
“You just gotta keep your eyes open, y’all. Because if they can just come up and take somebody because they’ve made a decision that you’re supposed to be that person, any one of us could find ourselves being deported to some country when we’ve never been there,” Goldberg said during the “Hot Topics” segment of the program.
“Don’t give them any ideas, girl,” co-host Ana Navarro chimed in.
“Listen, you know, it is very clear to me that if we don’t continue to say we want—listen, I understand you want to clean out all the old, some bad stuff. I get it, but why do you now have access to my personal information?” Goldberg continued. “I get what the things you are trying to do, I don’t understand why you’re taking my stuff. My personal—not mine personally, but each and every one of you! And your Constitutional right to free speech.”
Newsweek reached out to Goldberg’s representative via email for additional comment.
The Sister Act star questioned whether the alleged gang members were already in jail or if they had been “picked up,” noting that the “problem,” she thinks, for many Americans is that “you do stuff, and nobody has any idea what’s going on.”
“I feel the same way you do, Whoopi. It’s the transparency,” co-host Sara Haines said. “Because if they were to release who these people were, what they did, and that it was confirmed they are part of this gang, I think anyone would get on board. It’s the fact that they keep hiding it and making mistakes that makes me wary.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the administration did not “refuse to comply” with U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order.
“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory,” she wrote on X. “The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict. Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear—federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion. A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrying foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”
While speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump skirted around a question over whether his administration had violated a court order.
“I don’t know. You have to speak to the lawyers about that,” he said. “I can tell you this. These were bad people.”