Due Process For Illegal Immigrants
U.S. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D–WA) claims that President Trump is “violating” the “5th Amendment” “right to due process under the law” by “allowing ICE to criminalize” non-citizens.
IN FACT, the removal of foreigners who are illegally in the U.S. is generally a civil matter, not a criminal one. The reality and implications of this fact are conveyed by:
- a 1952 Supreme Court ruling, which states that “deportation” has “been consistently classified as a civil, rather than a criminal, procedure.”
- a 1913 Supreme Court ruling, which states that “deportation” is not based on the “conviction of crime, nor is the deportation a punishment; it is simply a refusal by the government to harbor persons whom it does not want.”
- the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, which states: “It is important to keep in mind that the underlying basis for a non-citizen’s removability may be due to some criminal violation, but the removal warrant used by ICE is not a criminal warrant signed by a federal judge.”
- the federal law that governs the “apprehension and detention of aliens,” which states that an “alien may be arrested and detained pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States” on a “warrant issued by the Attorney General,” which is not a judicial warrant but an administrative one.
- the federal law that governs the “powers of immigration officers,” which states that they have the “power without warrant” to “interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States” and arrest him if there is “reason to believe that the alien” is violating immigration law and is “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.”
