That Democrats entirely ignored the law, including due process, when importing some 20 million illegal immigrants is to be expected. What many didn’t expect is Dems were thinking ahead. Importing tens of millions, spending billions of taxpayer dollars to do it and to support them after they’re here is easy. Deporting them? That’s hard and is exactly what Dems planned.
We already have an immigration court backlog of some three million cases, many of them people who want to immigrate legally. Adding any number to that backlog would hopelessly and indefinitely clog the system. Add 20 million or so suddenly granted full due process by Dem legislators in black robes and most of those illegals would never be deported.
Americans are beginning to realize that was always the point.
Dems may not have expected Trump to win, but they were certainly planning on using lawfare to prevent deportations in case Congress suddenly rediscovered the rule of law. With Trump in power again, and with their Party in disarray, lawfare is their only play and thus far the Supreme Court and Congress are playing along.
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Graphic: X Screenshot
Do illegals have the due process rights of Americans? They certainly don’t have the due process rights of citizen criminal defendants. George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley provides background:
Under current procedures, undocumented persons are dealt with under either §1225(b)(1) or §1225(b)(2). Section 1225(b)(1) allows for deportations for those who enter through fraud, misrepresentation, or without valid documentation. Under the first provision, deportation can be ordered by ICE officials “without further hearing or review” under an expedited removal process. [emphasis mine] §1225(b)(1)(A)(i). If Trump were speaking of that group, he would be correct so long as there is not an asylum claim. There can be a return without a hearing or judge. Only about 15 percent of undocumented persons have hearings and the Obama Administration aggressively pursued expedited deportations without hearings. However, if an alien “indicates either an intention to apply for asylum . . . or a fear of persecution,” the ICE officials must make a threshold determination if the claims is credible, and, if it is credible, “the alien shall be detained for further consideration of the application for asylum.” §1225(b)(1)(B)(ii).
Thus we see why Biden’s Handlers, their pet NGOs and other nations, were careful to teach every illegal to immediately assert an asylum claim. It gums up the works. Then there’s the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility act of 1996:
“the alien shall have the privilege of being represented, at no expense to the Government,” and “the alien shall have a reasonable opportunity to examine the evidence against the alien, to present evidence on the alien’s own behalf, and to cross-examine the witnesses presented by the Government …”
I rather doubt Republicans imagined that act would be applied to 20 million illegally hustled into the country by Democrats. Whether Dems were thinking that far ahead is another matter. In any case, the brokest nation in history doesn’t have the personnel or money to provide those kinds of services to illegals. And there’s more:
The government recently won an important decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez in which the Supreme Court reversed a lower court that found that federal law barred the holding of immigrants indefinitely and requires bond hearings after six months to evaluate if detention remains justified. Moreover, the Supreme Court has previously “rejected the claim that aliens are entitled to Fifth Amendment rights outside the sovereign territory of the United States.” United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 269 (1990) (citing Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 784 (1950)). Whatever due process claims are viable for undocumented persons accrue only “within the territorial jurisdiction.” See Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369 (1886).
Turley concludes with this:
However, the blanket call for deportations without due process would be difficult to square with this prior authority. It is also difficult to square with our values as a nation for those with a legitimate fear for their lives and a history of persecution in their nations of origin.
What’s also difficult to square is holding the law and Constitution as a national suicide pact, forced upon us by the malicious plotting of the Democrat party. High-minded concerns for the rights of illegal immigrants might be affordable when we’re dealing with a tiny fraction of those Dems hustled into the country. Imbuing tens of millions of those illegals with the rights of citizens, and raiding the public treasury to pay for all those legal processes, amounts to willing suicide.
It’s now up to the Supreme Court and Congress to decide whether America is first and foremost for Americans. I’m not holding my breath.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
