Due Process and Immigration?
23rd March 2025
By the way, as I see it, the people being removed are being removed because they entered the country illegally. That they supposedly have violent criminal backgrounds or are members of violent gangs is the reason for prioritizing their removal, but not the sole reason for their removal. Some of the “due process” concerns I have read or heard pertain to whether or not these people are actually gang members. But I don’t see that distinction as relevant to the question of whether they can be removed because they entered the country illegally.
And I understand that the reason these people were removed to El Salvador rather than to their home country of Venezuela is that Venezuela refused to allow them back in.
I can kinda understand having a little more process when revoking previously granted permission to enter the country (i.e., revoking a “green card” or a visa) because the person violated the terms of the permission. But I still don’t see that those processes need to be as stringent as the full criminal due process requirements. Being sent back to your home country is categorically different from being sentenced to prison or to death.
Proglodytes chant ‘DUE PROCESS! DUE PROCESS! DUE PROCESS!’ as if it were an magical spell that will act as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card (which is actually Habeas Corpus, but that’s law school talking).
What everybody is ignoring is the fundamental question of: What ‘process’ is ‘due’?
If you accuse someone of Not Following The Rules, then the immediate concern is, what version of The Rules are you talking about? Because the legal system has many different sets of The Rules depending on the circumstances, and nobody seems willing to do the heavy lifting of talking about which set of The Rules applies.