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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   32018 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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due process afforded to US citizens to do things like prove they're a citizen in court

This equivocation on "due process" is a motte-and-bailey because the amount of process required to establish whether or not somebody is a citizen is far simpler than, and falls far short of, the due process (trial by jury, assistance of counsel, confrontation of witnesses, right to appeal, etc.) which is constitutionally required in criminal trials. The fact that Abrego Garcia is not a citizen (and is an illegal immigrant) has never been disputed by him or by anyone else, even though he has been through several administrative hearings (which, again, do not count as "due process" in the legal sense because of the lack of jury etc.) at which he could have presented proof of citizenship if he had it.

I will start to worry about my own safety and that of other US citizens if it comes out that the "administrative error" that led to Abrego Garcia being sent to El Salvador was one that was just as likely to have caught up an American citizen. However, that doesn't appear to be the case here. The government picked up a bunch of people from a list of deportation orders from immigration judges, not realizing that in Abrego Garcia's case the order specifically excluded El Salvador. If he were a citizen, no such order would've existed and so he would not have been deported.

And they're already making mistakes mixing up citizens with illegal immigrants

Again correct me if I'm wrong (since this is not purely academic but a matter of immediate self-interest for me to know correctly one way or the other if I'm in danger of deportation) but this has the appearance of a software bug where immigrants listed this attorney's contact info as their own and so a message meant for them was instead sent to the attorney. I don't think there's any realistic chain of events by which this attorney ends up being deported because of this.

He was not even afforded this small amount of due process required to establish citizenship. He was not deported as the result of any hearing. The result of the hearings was that he won the right not to be deported. They deported him anyway, accidentally and illegally. If they accidentally deported a citizen, at what point would that citizen be able to prove his citizenship before leaving the country? The current system would not put that person in front of a judge before getting deported.

I don’t think that’s correct. He was precluded from being deported to ES. I don’t think that is the same as saying he can’t be deported but I’m not an immigration lawyer.

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