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Due process for all! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-16
This is a partial reprint of a post I wrote in 2018. Most of it is still relevant today. First an update...
Families are still being separated at the southern border, although not in the numbers that we saw in prior years. My understanding is that there are family detention camps to house them together. Obviously though, there isn’t always a need to detain people indefinitely just because we want to be cruel. They could be staying with families and friends who will support them, instead of the far more expensive, unnecessary and cruel option of detention.
However, there is a new variation of the cruelty of this administration that has exploded into the news in the last several weeks — sweeping visa holders, & green card holders, both of whom are here legally either into prison like detention centers or an actual prison in El Salvador. There are others who’ve been caught up as well who are likely in the country without permission.
What these 3 groups have in common is that they have been denied due process. EVERYONE in the country has the right to due process. Immigrants have a right to request asylum regardless of whether they enter the country at a border crossing or not. This is a right under our own laws!
The administration is purposely taking these extrajudicial actions to scare us, and to extend their power over the other branches of government. I want to be clear though — REPUBLICANS are the ones that own this and need to stop it. Democrats don’t have the power, but they will do all they can to stop it if a couple of dozen republicans grow a damn spine. Again, REPUBLICANS ARE RESPONSIBLE for these very dangerous actions.
x Once again, if this guy had just been deported, this would not be a story. The reason it's important is that Trump has sent this guy to prison for life, even though he was never even arrested for anything, let alone convicted, in the 14 years he was in the U.S.
https://t.co/YWYKtPQUD1 — James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) April 15, 2025
On to the reprint from 2018
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I have been experiencing so many emotions about the news regarding the current DHS policy of separating children from their parents at our Southern border. I’ve crossed the border pictured above several times, always for vacations in Canada. I’ve even picnicked at the beautiful Peace Arch park. But my most stirring memories of crossing the border is the Arch itself. It calls to you to pull out of the long line of cars and be moved by the beauty of the structure and the words inscribed on it.
Children of a Common Mother Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity May These Gates Never Be Closed
Right now I can’t write these words without tearing up. They move me that much.
Unfortunately for too many people seeking refuge, this no longer represents the spirit of this country. This administration’s current immigration practices are grounded in racism. Removing children from their parents is grounded in abject cruelty, meant to serve as a deterrent. Never mind that asylum seekers are allowed, by law, to request refuge in this country and we have no business punishing those who request asylum.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, has released this statement about this policy.
Many families seeking safety in the United States are fleeing from violence and persecution. They make the dangerous trek to the southern border because they feel they have no other choice, not because they want to do so. Criminally charging them for seeking refuge in our country is a needless and heartless expansion of our nation’s mass incarceration problem, not a solution to the conditions that force people to flee. www.splcenter.org/...
Add the separation of families to the other news that ~1500 children are currently unaccounted for by HHS. Keep in mind that the ~1500 is just the total from those taken into custody in the 4th quarter of 2017. There are more.
I believe we are witnessing an emergency. Please don’t tell me I don’t understand the issues, or I’m confused, or being hyperbolic. I do understand the different situations happening at the border. I do understand the problem started a few years ago under the Obama administration. I do understand that likely the vast majority of the missing children are probably safe. However, if any are not safe we have a huge problem. We absolutely should not be separating families at our borders, especially if we can’t keep track of the children.
*******
Just as I thought the family separations were an emergency, the lack of due process right now in 2025 is also an emergency.
We already know that the depraved administration is already planning on expanding their illegal actions. As Sherrilyn Ifill writes here:
And so Trump began by targeting a group whose demonization has been a feature of his xenophobic rhetoric: migrants.
Then later in the post:
But Trump’s next move – in fact the primary focus of his thinking – has been how to remove American citizens to foreign prisons. And the group upon which he will workshop the next stage of his plan is another population that most Americans – long before Trump’s rise – have despised and dismissed: incarcerated citizens.
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