Representative Mike Kennedy (R-UT) recently travelled to El Salvador for a photo-op at a notorious maximum-security prison. Kennedy said that many of these dangerous criminals were murdering innocent Americans, and the Trump administration was just “enforcing the law, restoring order, and protecting our citizens.”
The full facts of the matter, which Kennedy neglected, are the following. (1) Many of the Salvadorans that were deported to El Salvador posed no immediate threat to our security, as they were already detained in ICE facilities. (2) 90% of Salvadoran migrants had no U.S. criminal record. (3) The Trump administration violated a court order forbidding the deportation of three plane loads of Venezuelan nationals. (4) The Constitution states that EVERY individual, regardless of their legal status, has the right to due process of the law.
If any of these Salvadorans, after receiving due process, are shown to be dangerous criminals, then it is reasonable to deport them. The process matters. Jettisoning the due process of the law today means that one day you or I could, without just cause, be picked off the street, transported to a gulag in a foreign country and left there to rot. Shamefully, Kennedy exaggerated the risk that these migrants posed and failed to acknowledge the grave constitutional implications of violating due process in these deportations.
Justin F. Thulin, M.D.
Salt Lake City