I've asked this before, but how many Americans could even state a simple definition of what due process rights are? Can you (without cheating)? You've heard the term before (in school most likely), and if you were in the 10% of the students who weren't borderline flunking, you might even be able to name which amendment enumerates due process rights, but in my experience that's about the most any non-lawyer can even manage.
I have a fuzzy notion of what they encompass, admittedly, but nothing about the detention centers or the deportations stands out as a violation of those rights.
>I've asked this before, but how many Americans could even state a simple definition of what due process rights are?
It's because most people don't have a good grasp of how diverse and often flimsy administrative and civil process (in cases where one party is the .gov is in reality. Typically the answer is "whatever the enforcing agencies come up with", which isn't very reassuring.
Like for a traffic ticket they at least haul you before a judge in a public court anyone can attend to give some pretext of the accused having serious rights that protect them. It makes sense. Traffic tickets are a "mass market" product so to speak and so the .gov has to put on a good show even if at the end of the day someone facing a $200 civil traffic fine doesn't actually have the same rights as the guy facing a $200 criminal public urination fine.
When it comes to stuff like code enforcement, arcane industry enforcement, fish and game, ICE and everything else federal the process is far less "due", so to speak and is far more likely to not have separation of powers on the government side (i.e. administrative ppl in the enforcement agencies will be making decisions that would be made by a judge in other contexts)
I don't know what "due process" consists of for immigration violations but I would bet my last dollar that it is an absolute joke compared to the high end of civil (traffic ticket and the like), which itself is a joke compared to criminal matters.
I would really like to see all this shit thrown out by the supreme court. If the .gov, be it fed, state or local, is going to punish people the same way they punish criminals bet it a fine or jail then they ought to meet the same bar. Allowing people to be jailed (in the case of ICE) or fined large sums (in the case of many other types of administrative matters) because it's not nominally a criminal matter is 100% an end run around the constitution.
>I don't know what "due process" consists of for immigration violations but I would bet my last dollar that it is an absolute joke compared to the high end of civil
Then let's explore that. There are some rights which aren't fundamental human rights... that is, you don't get them just by virtue of existing. Voting comes to mind, that's a citizen's right only.
The right to be present within the borders of the United States is another such right. If you aren't a citizen, you do not have this right. We might extend the temporary privilege to non-citizens, but it is absolutely at the prerogative of the United States... subject to revocation at any time. The idea that it can't just be subject to revocation (arbitrary or otherwise) is the dimwitted notion that there is a sort of second-class citizenship... that some not-really-citizens can be here permanently and we can't decide that we want them to return home.
So, if they can be deported (for reason, or none at all), the only recourse such people have is "I can prove I'm a citizen". If ICE isn't letting them do so, if they protest that they are a citizen and the ICE agent sticks his fingers in his ears and chants "I can't hear you" repeatedly, then that would be a violation of due process. The process which is due (among whatever other redundant triplechecks they should be doing) is to hear all such protests in good faith and evaluate whatever evidence such a person provides. I haven't heard of any refusing to do such a thing (but if they have, it should be grounds for termination).
I reject the idea that it is necessary or desirable to drag each of these foreigners before a judge to perform this function.
> is going to punish people the same way they punish criminals
I don't want these people punished at all. Punishment would be putting them in prison (where they would stay in the United States). If someone is trespassing on your property and you call the police, the police would punish them by prosecuting, convicting, and incarcerating. When they drag them from your property and tell them to get lost, that's not punishment. It's just removal from where they aren't permitted to be. It's still not punishment even if they cry that they don't want to go home.
> The process which is due (among whatever other redundant triplechecks they should be doing) is to hear all such protests in good faith and evaluate whatever evidence such a person provides. I haven't heard of any refusing to do such a thing (but if they have, it should be grounds for termination).
A DOJ lawyer literally said they haven't been doing this sufficiently and then he got sacked by Pam Bondi. SCOTUS then reaffirmed 9 to 0 that the original lawyer who admitted this failure in court was actually correct, that DOJ wasn't giving people their due process rights.
I find it extremely hard to believe you have not heard about the Kilmar Abrego case?
Which does not preclude him from having due process rights, as SCOTUS ruled 9-0 (and has been reaffirmed unequivocally by about 180 years of case law).
His due process rights were "if he protests that he is a citizen, then they must make effort to determine if that is the case with haste, and release him if it checks out".
He did not assert citizenship, they did not violate due process rights. No other process is due him. Anyone claiming that it's a violation of due process rights doesn't know what they mean, though for a moment I had hope for you... you sort of described them, or at least hinted at them, but you're unable to apply what you described to this situation. Due process rights can't and won't keep non-citizens in this country if they are trying to avoid deportation, and shouldn't ever. Non-citizens only have the revocable-for-any-reason-or-none privilege of visiting, and that only if they get the visa.
I have a fuzzy notion of what they encompass, admittedly, but nothing about the detention centers or the deportations stands out as a violation of those rights.