Thursday, April 17, 2025

Due Process

 


As we are painfully seeing, Trump and his followers seem to find difficulty in understanding what tariffs and due process are.

While not trying to denigrate them, I’ll explain the latter for their edification . (And for Trump followers, denigrate means "to put down" and edification means "to be instructed.) 😉

For the more curious, open-minded, and clever type of Trump supporters:  

"Due process" is a Constitutional* guarantee that applies to all "persons", not just citizens. This includes illegal immigrants. The rule of law with due process is absent in fascist dictatorships and communist police states.

Only in a dictatorship can the criminal leader simply declare a person like Abrego Garcia a terrorist and gang member without showing evidence, (Due process) and then send him to a life sentence in a gulag. The Administration even admitted deporting him was a mistake. The unreliable police detective who accused Garcia of being a member of the gang MS-13 was suspended days later for leaking confidential information to a woman he was paying for sex. Not that Trump and his mob care.

And remember, without due process Trump can accuse anybody he doesn’t like of being, or doing, whatever he says he is, or did. It could be you or me next. Only the courts can stop him from this illegal autocratic behavior. 

Now Garcia will need to move to a sane country to be safe from TRUMP and his legions of thugs. Yes, he now needs asylum from the Trump Gang. 

KilmarAbrego Garcia is 29-year-old man from El Salvador who has been is married to a U.S. citizen and a father of three children. He was deported on March 15, 2025, from the United States in what the Trump administration called an "administrative error" and is currently in prison in El Salvador.

Garcia has never been convicted or charged with a crime and in 2019, a judge in Maryland granted him a "withholding of removal" status. That allowed him to legally work and live in the U.S. He was granted a work permit by the Department of Homeland Security and lived and worked in Maryland up until his deportation.

Now Trump is refusing to have Garcia released, even after the Supreme Court upheld an order to facilitate his return. This is also what a fascist dictator does. 

Even US citizens are being illegally detained.

American born Twenty-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was detained in a Florida jail even after his mother presented his birth certificate in court. Another American citizen, Nicole Micheroni was ordered to leave the country within seven days.

See? No DUE PROCESS!

===

DUE PROCESS IN IMMIGRATION PROCEEDINGS

I. DUE PROCESS

A. Generally

“Immigration proceedings, although not subject to the full range of constitutional protections, must conform to the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of due process.” Salgado-Diaz v. Gonzales, 395 F.3d 1158, 1162 (9th Cir. 2005) (as amended); see also Grigoryan v. Barr, 959 F.3d 1233, 1240 (9th Cir. 2020); Gonzaga-Ortega v. Holder, 736 F.3d 795, 804 (9th Cir. 2013) (as amended); Vilchez v. Holder, 682 F.3d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir. 2012); United States v. Reyes Bonilla, 671 F.3d 1036, 1045 (9th Cir. 2012); Pangilinan v. Holder, 568 F.3d 708,709 (9th Cir. 2009).

“[O]ur immigration laws have long made a distinction between those aliens who have come to our shores seeking admission . . . and those who are within the United States after an entry.” Leng May Ma v. Barber, [357 U.S. 185, 187] (1958). Aliens “who have once passed through our gates, even illegally,” are afforded the full panoply of procedural due process protections, and “may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness.” Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, [345 U.S. 206, 212] (1953)

===

OK. All in favor of the rule of law with due process, a show of hands, please.

Thank you. 

And now, all in favor of dictatorship, feel free to insult, denigrate, or ignore me and my facts. Chances are you didn't read this far anyway, amirite?

~~~~~~

*Fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

*Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


2 comments:

Dave Miller said...

Two things Dave...

1. Why is this difficult?

Because the Trump Admin and the MAGA crowd who will soon be posting their off topic rants here copied from the Stench Trench, misread and misunderstand the US Constitution. Worse, they falsely "claim" fealty to it [go look it up trolls], but in reality, people can't claim fealty to something they've never read and can't understand.

And...

2. For months now, MAGA lovers, GOP Congressman and more have pooh poohed folks like us, libs, progressives and Dems for warning about citizens soon being subject to the same fate as Garcia. Now we see it is actually happening. In the case of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez in Florida, it all started with a tragic mistake and a US born citizen was arrested and put in jail.

Okay, I'll give you this... when you are arresting ppl for deportation based mostly on appearance, as opposed to actual evidence, mistakes can and will happen.

But here are the facts in this case. After Gomez was arrested, his birth certificate and social security card were presented to the court. The court after review, found that the documents were "authentic" and found no probable cause for the illegal detainment of Gomez.

As a result, the court ordered Gomez, again, a US born citizen illegally detained, to be released. The state refused, citing an order from the Trump Admin and ICE.

Why did the Trump Admin and ICE refuse to release Gomez and order him to continue to be held, despite his innocence and a judicial order?

Because, they argued, the court "did not have the authority" to order the release of an innocent man they had wrongly detained. Sound familiar?

We used to say only in America are you "innocent until proven guilty". No more. We've joined the rest of the world and now live under the Napoleonic Code where you are "guilty until proven innocent".

But now it's worse. Because now, under the Trump Admin, even when your innocence has been proven, the government still keeps you in jail.

Good job Trump supporters. You got the king you wanted, but like the Hebrew ppl back in the day, are now seeing that God was right. It ain't always as nice and perfect as ppl thought it would be.

Because it's no longer about justice. It's about winning, power and owning the libs.

Dave Dubya said...

Dave,
The radical Right authoritarians are all about "winning, power and owning the libs" instead of rational policy and the public good.

They claim to be "Constitutionalists" but they HATE our Constitution's provisions for taxes, regulation of commerce, and provision for the general welfare. They're just in it for the guns and electoral college.

This follows their ludicrous claim to be "Christians", as they enthusiastically embrace the opposite of the message of Jesus. They really believe, "To HELL with welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick, comforting the imprisoned, feeding the poor, and rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's". Instead they revere and empower the very worst servants of mammon, and demand their taxes be cut, and obediently hate everyone who disagrees with their economic elite oligarchs.

As we stand, Trump is the de-facto dictator of the US, imprisoning people without due process and making the classic fascist dictator demands to annex or rule other countries.

They are assuring America will never be great again.