Hey, even broke clocks are right twice a day...
If you listen to some right-wing pundits, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is running a smuggling ring across the southern border.
Far be it from me to defend La Cortez, but I find the misrepresentations from those who think there is a Constitution-free zone in this country to be annoying. It evinces ignorance at best, and at its worst, a desire to simply pretend that due process is discretionary. It’s not.
It’s the backbone of our legal system and if you decide that it’s OK to deprive immigrants of those established rights, it’s a shortstep to denying other groups.
Tom Homan, the new director of ICE director, recently called AOC one of the “dumbest congresswomen in DC” and slyly suggested that counseling immigrants on how to avoid arrest was illegal. Homan knows this is a crock of frijoles and arroz. What AOC and other immigration advocates are doing is trying to explain what immigrants can demand, and what they cannot, under the current laws of this country.
Everyone who lives in the United States has the right to due process. The Supreme Court has made clear that your immigration status does not deprive you of those rights.
In Reno vs. Flores, in a majority opinion written by the great Antonin Scalia, the court held “it is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation proceedings.” (Patriot Post)
Antonin Scalia was one of the great legal minds of the late 20th century but odds are he wouldn't want to get into this debate. However, he did make it clear in his SCOTUS opinions that the Constitution and the rights therein apply to all on U.S. soil, irrespective of citizens. Someone needs to remind Tom Homan, as much as I support his efforts to enforce immigration law, that the Constitution makes no respecter of citizenship.
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