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Do you consider people being deported without trial to be something "controversial"? I think most people consider bans on such things to be a basic principle o
by resters 1y ago
Do you consider people being deported without trial to be something "controversial"? I think most people consider bans on such things to be a basic principle of british common law and (with a few notable exceptions) a centuries old norm for western civilization.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> Do you consider people being deported without trial to be something "controversial"? Is there, in fact, significant controversy over it? Then, yes, it is controversial. > I think most people consider bans on such things to be a basic principle of british common law I don't think most people have any idea what “british common law” is, much less have a particular opinion about what it has to say about American immigration policy. And, AFAICT, British Common Law at the point it was last relevant to American law, that is, at the time of US independence, was somewhat unsettled on the matter, with leading scholars disagreeing over whether the power of removal was purely discretionary, required stating good cause, or might be subject to more stringent limits as to justification for certain aliens, see, e.g., the discussion at https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8-2/ALDE_00001256/ https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8...
- resters 1y agoThe previous time the alien enemies act was exercised (putting Japanese Americans in camps during WW2) is widely viewed as having been highly inappropriate and regrettable act. Ronald Reagan officially apologized and paid $20K to the families of each person victimized.
- readthenotes1 1y ago40 years later? Were there people marching in the streets demanding the practice stop in the 1940s? Editorials? Muttering at work?
- dragonwriter 1y ago> The previous time the alien enemies act was exercised (putting Japanese Americans in camps during WW2) is widely viewed as having been highly inappropriate and regrettable act. This is often incorrectly cited as the last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, but EO 9066, under which the exclusion, and subsequent forced relocation of, Americans of Japanese descent from large swathes of the country, and some others, occurred does not cite as authority and was not tied to the Alien Enemies Act (which, by its own terms, only applies to aliens, not citizens.) There were invocations of the Alien Enemies Act in the earlier proclamations of Dec. 7 and Dec. 8, 1941, but the exclusions and forced relocation under military authority under EO 9066 was broader and not based on the Alien Enemies Act.
- resters 1y agoI get that EO 9066 wasn’t directly tied to the Alien Enemies Act, but the internment itself still relied on wartime powers and ended up targeting Japanese Americans unjustly. Do you think the legal specifics change how we view the regret over those camps today? Also FWIW Reagan's apology was addressed both to citizen and non-citizen victims of the camps.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> Do you think the legal specifics change how we view the regret over those camps today? I think whether or not, and how, it was tied to the Alien Enemies Act is more than a little relevant to considering what purpose it can serve in discussing the Alien Enemies Act. How we view the regret over the camps is, outside of that, mostly irrelevant to the context in which the issue was raised in this discussion.
- resters 1y ago> How we view the regret over the camps is, outside of that, mostly irrelevant to the context in which the issue was raised in this discussion. How do you arrive at that conclusion? The Japanese internment camps held both citizens and non-citizens. The camp in El Salvador currently holds mostly non-citizens but Trump issued a statement where he expressed enthusiasm for putting "home growns" in the camp as well. It is speculated that "home growns" refers to US citizens. Obviously EO 9066 was necessary because the alien enemies act wasn't sufficient to intern citizens, and both citizens and non-citizens were put in the camps. Trump's comment about "home growns" suggests that he may issue a similar order, which in my view makes the two situations quite analogous with respect to the principles of law involved in taking people into custody without trial.
- Hizonner 1y agoHabeas corpus was a universal right under English common law (and statute). Anybody who was detained (including in preparation to deport them) could demand a hearing to determine whether that detention was lawful. Even if the sovereign had total discretion to deport aliens, there was still a requirement to show that the person was in fact an alien. And one of the 17th century habeas acts (1679?) had severe penalties for hustling somebody out of the country as a way of avoiding the hearing.