Look at the legal analysis, not the sensationalist story: this is IIRC preexisting legal machinery, now being used for a different purpose.
You dislike how it is used; I dislike that it exists. We are not the same.
It's clear they're taking a 'the Court has written their law. Now let them enforce it.' approach, and it's not clear anybody is going to stop them.
Just curious. I'm starting to worry it might be the only right option
I don't know, its frightening to think about. I don't think its LIKELY, yet. but i cant say its UNTHINKABLE anymore.
And the current administration doesn't care about "waste", they only care if the given policy, department, money advances their goals / corruption and etc. They're happy to waste in that context.
And the regime loves pointless cruelty.
I've received replies from my MPP, MP, and a handful of cabinet ministers over the years writing about a few at-the-time hot topics. Doug Ford, for all his faults, is apparently quite responsive if you just text him (that's secondhand knowledge from a friend, I can't tell you if it's actually him on the other side of the line, but it's a thing that exists. Make of that what you will. )
I'm sure there are districts where this is not the case in the US - but I hope everyone with concerns reaches out to their elected officials and takes an hour once or twice a year to listen to them in person when they are present in their districts.
If your rep doesn't answer you, tell your neighbors and vote for one who will.
He's going to be lucky to make it through this term, forget running for president again at 82
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-disappearance...
" [Enforced disappearance] is characterized by three cumulative elements (defined in A/HRC/16/48/Add.3):
A) Deprivation of liberty against the will of the person;
B) Involvement of government officials, at least by acquiescence;
C) Refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. "
If you think about the administration's unwillingness to comply with the court's ruling to return the individual, who by their own admission, they mistakenly took away due to an "administrative error" there are many open questions. How do we know that the individual is still alive? For that matter, how do we know that all the other people who they say were removed from the country are still alive?
We have no independently verified information as to fates of these people. More likely than not, in the course of these actions by the government, the number of deaths is some number greater than zero. Even if they have not performed outright executions, some deaths as a result of the conditions and or their treatment in custody is almost certain. So is that state sanctioned man slaughter/murder? Does this make ICE a death squad?
What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.
You don't need to act, but talk with your wife. Make a plan of where you would go, check all the requirements and start ticking the boxes, know how to apply, keep a list of what will need to come with you, etc.
Like maybe you can have a playbook ready or something. Or have her documents all collected in one place.
(I don't have any expertise here, just spitballing ideas that may be useful.)
On a more serious note, suppose the next president is JD Vance instead; do you think things would be any better? I suspect they would rather get worse when someone with similar beliefs but more intellectual capacity to implement them is in charge.
In a fascist society, it is a crime to post such things or discuss them the way we do, and the penalties are severe. Look at what happens in Russia today to people who post content critical of war in Ukraine on their social media.
The admin is now trying to treat people who support Constitutional Amendments as terrorists: https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1k11wg4/trumps_counter...
And your argument is: 'Well we can have flagged HN stories so we're not fascist?'; am I understanding that right?
Here's a helpful tool btw: https://www.realtimefascism.com/
But there are requirements for at least some attempt at individualized due process, and those are being ignored, which is mostly new. And there are certain reasons they don't get to use, and that's also being ignored. And probably shipping people to abusive facilities in El Salvador violates some laws that weren't being violated before.
Was US immigration law always inhumane and immoral, both as written and as enforced? Yes. Was ICE always full of thugs, and did it always tend to push to the very edge of what it was allowed to do? Yes. Have things gotten worse in qualititative ways, including violating laws? Also yes.
What's interesting is how much of a grey area that the due process question is. Non-citizens may or may not actually legally merit due process, and to whatever degree they might, they only merit it while "within" the "jurisdiction" of the US. And as far as I can tell, that 'grey area' of how the 14th amendment is read, plus the alien enemies act, is probably legally enough to justify this - and we also have all kinds of exceptions for dealing with "terrorists" (thanks, Obama).
Lets also not forget how much legal precedent Guantanamo provides when dealing with non-citizen (or even US Citizen!) "terrorists".
I don't think you've been specific about any other laws - just a couple of guesses about 'probably violating' things.
You seem to be radically misreading a condition on conditions at birth that applies to birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment as a modifier on conditions at the time of government action against them that applies to the due process clause of the same amendment, but also, the 14th Amendment has no bearing on whether people have due process rights against the federal government, in the first place, as the due process clause of the 14th applies to the states.
Due process against the federal government is provided by the 5th Amendment, so even if the misreading of the 14th was right and applicable to due process rights, it would limit only the due process applicable to certain people for actions by state governments.
> Lets also not forget how much legal precedent Guantanamo provides when dealing with non-citizen (or even US Citizen!) "terrorists".
Well, yeah, but most of that legal precedent was negative for unchecked executive power (and even restrictive of legislative abuses), see Rasul v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsefeld, and Boumediene v. Bush, most notably.
I missed that bit about the 14th amendment.
This has nothing to do with the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment argument is about who gets ius soli citizenship (what they call "birthright citizenship"), not about the treatment of anybody who's agreed not to be a citizen. The administration has made claims about jurisdiction limiting what they have to do for non-citizens, but not on that basis.
So far I don't think they've actually tried to deport anybody born on US soil. If they do, then the 14th Amendment comes into play.
The existing cases are about the 5th amendment, Article 1 habeas corpus, common law, immigration statutes, etc, not the 14th.
Even the current Trump-enabling Supreme Court just affirmed that they get due process. They restricted the judicial vehicle for that to habeas corpus, which sucks because the person being grabbed has to actively request it... but they were clear that there had to be actual, meaningful access to habeas.
At an absolute minimum, the claim that somebody's a non-citizen to begin with is something that has to be proven at a habeas hearing.
... and permanent residents, at least, are statutorily entitled to have the government show cause before removing them. It can be pretty shitty half-assed cause. And it can be shown in a shitty half-assed administrative immigration "court". But it has to be shown. And if it's not shown properly, that can be appealed to a real court.
The question is whether an illegal immigrant even has access to due process, according to a strict legal reading of the law. This was one of the arguments being thrown around - whether or not "any person" in the above applies to illegal immigrants or just US-born noncitizens (native american indians? I forget).
I think you completely missed the point of my reference to the 14th.
Edit: btw the "within its jurisdiction" phrase above is probably why the supreme court is treading so carefully around the el salvador part of this - they can't give the administration any grounds to point out that el salvador is outside US jurisdiction. That's why all they could say was 'facilitate', and why they had to slap the lower judge's wrist.
All of the brouhaha around the word "jurisdiction" in the 14th Amendment is about citizenship. Nobody other than you has "thrown around" anything like what you're suggesting.
> Edit: btw the "within its jurisdiction" phrase above is probably why the supreme court is treading so carefully around the el salvador part of this - they can't give the administration any grounds to point out that el salvador is outside US jurisdiction.
The administration has been pointing that out. Loudly and repeatedly. It has some real effects on habeas, as well as on what actions are available to the US Government generally. They're also trying to falsely claim a bunch of effects it doesn't have. But nobody has mentioned or thought about the 14th Amendment, because it's not relevant. At all.
The Government may not rely on its own failure to circumvent its own ruling that Abrego Garcia could not be removed to El Salvador. More importantly, the Government cannot be permitted to ignore the Fifth Amendment, deny due process of law, and remove anyone it wants, simply because it claims the victims of its lawlessness are members of a gang. Nor can the Government be permitted to disclaim any ability to return those it has wrongfully removed by citing their physical presence in a foreign jurisdiction.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/ab...
>That's why all they could say was 'facilitate', and why they had to slap the lower judge's wrist.
That's an incomprehensible interpretation of what the Supreme Court actually wrote:
The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority.
The question is not what due process entails. The question is who gets access to it. Pretty sure you missed my point fairly thoroughly.
It makes references to who birthright citizenship applies to (the part that your "jurisdiction" bit comes from): "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
It separately details due process rights against the states, and who they are applicable to, which is all persons: "...nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
Due process against the federal government comes from the 5th Amendment, which was around long before the 14th, but also applies to all persons. "No person [...] shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
> The question is not what due process entails. The question is who gets access to it.
The 14th Amendment has nothing to do with that, when the party acting is the federal government. (OTOH, where it does apply, it says exactly the same thing as the provision that does apply to the federal government, that due process applies to every person.)
> Pretty sure you missed my point fairly thoroughly.
I'm pretty sure that you are the one missing the point -- both mine and the Constitution's.
Well that’s one of the things being argued, unfortunately. Things can look obvious until you read closer.