OPINION:
President Trump is using an 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify the deportations of hundreds of people he says are members of a vicious Venezuelan gang. That law was last used during World War II by the Roosevelt administration to justify the internment of Japanese Americans. The government later apologized for that action and paid reparations to the survivors who were detained, but not until 1988, the last year of the Reagan administration.
Judge James Boasberg, the U.S. District Court chief judge in the District of Columbia, ordered a halt to deportations until a hearing could be held. The administration said the planes deporting Venezuelans were already in the air and over international waters Saturday before the judge’s order. Mr. Trump has called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, an appointee of President Obama.
One can agree that these Venezuelans are “very bad people” while defending their right to due process, a concept at least as old as the Magna Carta.
In a summation of the Magna Carta’s influence on modern law, a posting on the Library of Congress site says: “The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee that no person shall ‘be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ incorporated the model of the rule of law that English and American lawyers associated most closely with Magna Carta for centuries. Under this model, strict adherence to the regular procedure was the most important safeguard against tyranny.”
There was at least one option to pay $6 million to El Salvador to take and imprison the Venezuelans. It’s what the administration initially planned: Send suspected criminals to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await a hearing before an immigration judge. Hundreds of tents were erected for the prospective deportees. The administration apparently preferred a faster strategy, perhaps to demonstrate how tough it could be when following through on Mr. Trump’s campaign and subsequent promises to rid the country of undocumented aliens and “known criminals.”
That approach has likely contributed to Mr. Trump’s record-high poll numbers, but at what cost?
If the Venezuelans had been sent to Guantanamo and each one appeared before an immigration judge, the chances of deportation would have been excellent. That would uphold constitutional law and produce the same results as the administration desires.
Think of it this way: If you were charged with a crime, would you want the government bypassing a jury trial to satisfy a government or political objective? This is the way totalitarian regimes behave. It should not be a policy of the United States. No president should be allowed to unilaterally remove constitutional rights from anyone, including those who may have broken the law to get to this country.
Founding Father George Mason said: “No free government, nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved, to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.”
Either due process is for everybody, or it is for nobody.
• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Mr. Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).
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