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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   33050 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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People on the left fearmonger about the idea of American citizens being wrongly deported.

This is very unlikely for several reasons:

  1. Naturalized immigrants all have papers and are in the system

  2. US citizens born abroad have their births registered to obtain identity documents (to first travel to the US)

  3. 'Birthright citizens' almost always have parents who realize how valuable citizenship for their kids is, so are likely to have a birth certificate

  4. Legacy Americans with no birth certificates for whom obtaining proof of citizenship is otherwise impossible can be DNA tested and will show a big web of extended family in the US that will confirm US-born ancestors

The few people who would be wrongly deported given these safeguards would be a handful extremely stupid people with no family who care about them at all, which suggests an asocial streak that would likely be little missed in any case.

This is conflating risk and hazard (in addition to being yourself antisocially callous or glib about people "that would likely be little missed" ... by you): The risk may be low (if people are given due process, prior to deportation, which has unfortunately become an "if"...), but the hazard is very, very high.

I'm as opposed to "open borders with extra steps" as the next Motter, but saying concerns about extreme hazards are "fearmongering," because the hazards are low risk is itself a motte-and-bailey.

Something like 100 US citizens have been wrongfully deported the last two decades. I can't find any case law about it though. It seems the error is discovered (or a complaint is made) and they are eventually awarded damages. The government has apparently never argued that our courts have no jurisdiction over these deportees, but I'm not clear why the arguments being posed by Trump's lawyers would be any different?

Because US citizens have different rights than illegal aliens whose deportation proceedings have been stayed due to an executive order?

Okay so suppose a US citizen is wrongfully held in a foreign prison. What could a US court do to fix that? The executive has a lot of tools to fix that, but courts don't? If the executive is not interested in fixing it, aren't they just screwed?

I'm not sure you can effectively execute a detailed genetic testing plan from an El Savadorean gulag, but even if you could, and even if a US Court accepted it, it wouldn't matter much to your jailors.

Seems like a claim of actual citizenships should give the individual the right to some kind of summary hearing in front of a neutral party to make that case.

That stuff can just be gamed. If an individual has no US passport or birth certificate, they can be deported and then - if they win their case upon appeal or their family / some NGO appeals on their behalf - they can be paid $250k in compensation and flown back. Special procedures can easily be implemented for the Amish or Mennonites or whatever (who are obviously not just going to be picked up by ICE).

Most of the kind of Americans who would be accidentally deported under this policy would be overjoyed to make a quarter million dollars for spending 2 weeks in a Salvadoran gulag.

But all of this could be avoided by just ensuring due process before anyone is deported. Why would we intentionally give the federal government this kind of power that could easily be abused? It serves no purpose other than removing a miniscule number of illegal immigrants who have no real effect on anything.

It is, as you say, unlikely.

But I am still concerned when the US Department of Justice argues that if it did happen to me, I would have no redress.

I mean are dna tests acceptable evidence for that?

I agree that in practice US citizens are not going to be locked up in an El Salvadoran gulag.

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