Trump Admin Continues to Dismantle Due Process: Efforts to End Bond Hearings and Circumvent Judges Are a Direct Threat to the Rights of Every American Citizen

Vanessa Cárdenas: “It may start with immigrants, but it will end with you.”

 Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC — The Trump administration’s disdain for due process and the rule of law is on display, yet again. Three storylines in the news in recent days underscore how Stephen Miller and allies are going for broke, seizing new powers that allow the administration to subvert due process, bypass accountability and rapidly deport anyone they see fit. Notably, their efforts threaten the rights of not only immigrants but of all Americans. Among the developments include:

• Eviscerating bond hearings and release from detention: As the Washington Post reported in, “ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings,” in a July 8 memo from Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, the Trump administration “declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court …[per the memo] immigrants should be detained ‘for the duration of their removal proceedings,’ which can take months or years … immigrants ‘may not be released from ICE custody.’ In rare exceptions immigrants may be released on parole, but that decision will be up to an immigration officer, not a judge, he wrote.”
• Firing immigration judges and circumventing due process: Mindful of the last sentence in the above excerpt — how in “rare exceptions,” parole may be granted but the decision will be “up to an immigration officer, not a judge” — read the new Associated Press article, “Trump administration fires 17 immigration court judges across ten states, union says,” which underscores that the Trump administration’s answer to a massive immigration case backlog doesn’t seem to be hiring more immigration judges, but instead to bypass the judiciary and basic due process in favor of more executive branch control.
• Green-lighting fast-track deportations, including to third countries: And recall that a separate memo from acting ICE Director Lyons issued last week, also first reported on by the Post, details that “Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants to countries other than their own, with as little as six hours’ notice, even if officials have not provided any assurances that the new arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture.”

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Due process, the rule of law and the constitutional rights of every American are increasingly under threat by the Trump Administration. Denying people the right to bond hearings, firing immigration judges and fast tracking the removal of individuals without due process are all interrelated parts of the Trump/Miller mass deportation crusade. As we have long said, immigration is just the tip of the spear in an all-out assault on our democracy and these new developments threaten all Americans’ basic rights and protections.

Given the real and growing number of examples of U.S. citizens, mostly Latinos, who have been detained and even deported under this administration, these new policies will only lead to more abuses and more unlawful purges. It may start with immigrants, but it will end with you. No American should feel safe that their rights are protected when accountability and due process are lacking.”