Due Process

I am not a constitutional expert. I am a passionate citizen pausing to reflect on what I am seeing.

This morning on FOX News, I watched footage of "criminal migrants" being deported to El Salvador. They were in shackles, bent over forcibly by armed personnel, had their heads shaved, and forced into mass cells. Once in the cells, they were all in matching clothes, which means at some point they were stripped of their personal clothing.

Then, Senator Chuck Grassley said that they were all going to be deported one way or the other, the only difference was whether or not they had a deportation hearing first.

Someone who swore to uphold the constitution seems to have missed the fifth amendment.

According to the government website that details the exact text and legal precedents:

"The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects all persons within U.S. territory, including corporations,6 aliens,7 and, presumptively, citizens seeking readmission to the United States.8".

In the presidential order that preceded this mass deportation, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was invoked. In the history of the United States, this law has been officially invoked three times: during the War of 1812, WWI, and WWII. In the most recent application, the internment camp at Manzanar was one despicable result.

It was the shaving of their heads that ignited the fire in me to write this post about my passion for due process; it reminded me too much of what happened as Europeans were marched into camps.

As someone who has been studying American history for as long as public schools encourage, plus college, grad school, being across the hall from a civics class for five years, and my own personal interest in reading primary source documents, I am an advocate for due process.

While I have personally experienced the ways that due process and justice are not the same thing, I appreciate that there is at least an opportunity to have some rights as a human being.

I am pausing to discuss this topic because, in the history of our country, stripping people of their rights has never been looked back on as a positive thing. If someone has done something wrong and is accused of being a criminal, then why not use the legal system to demonstrate that? Why not have an immigration hearing first? What is the preventative factor to demonstrating due process?

I understand that there is a political question, legally, and that a president is well within their rights to declare that an incursion is happening and is predatory. My concern is why not just ask Congress to declare war on a specific gang or gangs, and then invoke the Alien Enemies Act as part of a wartime effort? The whole point of due process is that decisions should not be made unilaterally by one person; America does not have a monarch nor a dictator.

If the entire premise of our country is to be a democratic republic, then the most patriotic Americans will support all of the constitutional guard rails that keep power belonging to the citizenry from going to just a few people. I consider myself a patriotic person. I love this country and am fully aware of the privilege of being an American citizen. 

I do not agree with this behavior on the part of our government. I don't care how great anyone thinks it makes America.

Keep coming back.