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Newt Gingrich is now running around the country proposing numerous points to his immigration plan. One of those points is that we should make deportation easier, simpler. In a simplistic tone, he says that if you're not a US citizen, you're not entitled to due process, so you should just be sent home without a hearing or due process. Just a plane ticket and possibly a swift kick in the rear.
Now, that sounds clear and easy enough, but can anyone spot the flaw in his logic? (Putting aside the claim that only US citizens are entitled to due process, a claim I vehemently disagree with.)
Without due process and a hearing, how do we know the person facing deportation isn't a US citizen?! As it stands now, hundreds of US citizens are wrongly deported every year. (according to CNN researchers in June 2010. I have seen similar numbers from other sources as well.) A google search yields story after story of how these people get railroaded right out of the country of their birth.
If you are accused of being an illegal immigrant, you are not provided an attorney. It can also be incredibly difficult for people who are in ICE detention to make contact with friends or family members who could either hire an attorney for you or track down your birth certificate to prove your citizenship. I would hate to think how many more mistakes would be made if what minimal protections exist now were stripped away.
So, sure Newt, we should deport all those illegals right away without due process. As long as you'll pay for the first class airfare to bring all the wrongly-deported US citizens back home.
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4 comments:
Not to mention that he's ignoring the words of the Constitution he claims to revere so greatly. I challenge Speaker Gingrich to find the word "citizen" in the 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 offense 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."
Exactly. And we know the founders knew how to use the word "citizen" if that's what they'd wanted to use.
On a similar note, I'd really like someone to read the First Amendment and explain to me how they get the notion that freedom of speech is a right that somehow should only apply to individual people...
Such policies will have a negative effect on tourism - which is already much below what it could be due to the paranoia and incompetence of the federal government - leading to greater losses of potential income for the USA. Every opportunity for the government to act is an opportunity for the government to fail.
My field is Immigration Law and I appear almost daily in the Immigration Court seeing more thanmy share of heart breaking stories. One quick point: Removal (formerly deportation) hearings are civil in nature, not criminal and so the rights of the respondents are far less than in criminal proceedings. One other quick point: the vast majority of removals of US Citizens are done through "summary removal" which does not involve an Immigration Judge but merely a DHS official. It is equivilant to the arresting police officer conducting the trial on more like Roy Bean.
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