Shortly after the US government illegally and unconstitutionally transported about 240 Venezuelans to be imprisoned in El Salvador’s horrific “terrorism” prison on March 15, CBS News published their names. A subsequent CBS News investigation found that 75 percent of the men on that list had no criminal record in the United States or abroad. Less attention has been paid to the fact that dozens of these men never violated immigration laws either.
The US government not only denied these men due process; it has also generally failed to provide their families, their attorneys, or the public any information about what it alleges these men did to deserve incarceration in El Salvador. In fact, it has never even published a comprehensive list of individuals that it has sent to El Salvador, and it has refused to verify the CBS News list. Journalists have already discovered that the list obtained by CBS News was incomplete.
Moreover, in most cases, the men never knew the “evidence” against them or that they were being removed to El Salvador. Finally, the US and Salvadoran governments won’t allow the men to talk to anyone, so there is no way to interview them directly.
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The government calls them all “illegal aliens.” But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point. A Reuters survey of 50 men also placed the proportion of those who entered legally at about half. This isn’t surprising because about half of all the Venezuelans who have immigrated over the past two years came legally as well—either as refugees, parolees, or visa holders. The proportion isn’t what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are. Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.
Showing posts with label due process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label due process. Show all posts
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Deporting Legal Immigrants
Saturday, May 17, 2025
SCOTUS Frustrates Trump
Amy Howe at SCOTUSBlog:
The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon extended its ban on the removal from the United States of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody in the northern region of Texas. In an eight-page unsigned opinion, the justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court for another look and blocked the Trump administration from removing any of the men from the United States under an 18th-century wartime law until the appeals are resolved.
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Turning to the question of the notice that the detainees in this case received and whether they had a meaningful opportunity to challenge their removals, the court observed that the Trump administration did not challenge the detainees’ description of the barebones notice provided to them, or that it was preparing to carry out removals before the Supreme Court intervened on April 19. Moreover, the justices added, when the Trump administration has said that it cannot “provide for the return” of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man whom the government admits was mistakenly sent to an El Salvadoran prison, the “detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty.”
In this case, the justices concluded, the notice that the government did provide to detainees – “roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to” contest that removal, “surely does not pass muster.” But the court of appeals, rather than the Supreme Court, should “determine in the first instance the precise process necessary to satisfy the Constitution in this case,” the justices wrote.
Trump further attacks the court in a statement that completely fabricates / distorts the meaning of today’s ruling in several ways. pic.twitter.com/DAuNAwpghL
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 16, 2025
Friday, April 18, 2025
Stashing Away Residents of this Country
The Trump administration is snatching people without due process.
Upon review of the government’s motion, the court denies the motion for an emergency stay pending appeal and for a writ of mandamus. The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.
The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.
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“Energy in the [E]xecutive” is much to be respected. FEDERALIST NO. 70, at 423 (1789) (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). It can rescue government from its lassitude and recalibrate imbalances too long left unexamined. The knowledge that executive energy is a perishable quality understandably breeds impatience with the courts. Courts, in turn, are frequently attuned to caution and are often uneasy with the Executive Branch’s breakneck pace.
And the differences do not end there. The Executive is inherently focused upon ends; the Judiciary much more so upon means. Ends are bestowed on the Executive by electoral outcomes. Means are entrusted to all of government, but most especially to the Judiciary by the Constitution itself.
The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?∗ And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3; see also id. art. II, § 1, cl. 8.
-- Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson
* See, e.g., Michelle Stoddart, ‘Homegrowns are Next’: Trump Doubles Down on Sending American ‘Criminals’ to Foreign Prisons, ABC NEWS (Apr. 14, 2025, 6:04 PM); David Rutz, Trump Open to Sending Violent American Criminals to El Salvador Prisons, FOX NEWS (Apr. 15, 2025, 11:01 AM EDT).
2 telling things here:
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 18, 2025
1) White House crosses out “wrongly,” despite repeatedly acknowledging its error in court.
2) “who’s never coming back” is basically taunting SCOTUS. Signals the opposite of any intent to “facilitate” his return. https://t.co/Pn2ltL8lzX
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
And When The Last Law Was Down
The Trump administration is snatching people without due process.
Robert P. George on Twitter:
Robert P. George on Twitter:
Every single one of us has a profound interest in government at every level strictly observing due process of law. All of us should be deeply concerned by any violation of anyone's due process rights, whether in criminal or administrative matters. We might like what government can more efficiently accomplish by disregarding proper legal procedures today. But we will rue the day we licensed such governmental misconduct when, tomorrow, a different government disregards legal procedures to achieve quickly results we abhor. The government in power, whatever it is, will not always be in power. There will "arise a pharaoh who remembered not Joseph." If we want due process for ourselves and in defense of things we cherish and believe in, we must insist on due process for everyone.
Prof. George quotes a famous line:
William Roper: “So, now you'd give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's. And if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
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