Trump Says Alleged Gang Members Don’t Need Hearings Because the Government Is Infallible
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says all the migrants whom the Trump administration sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month are “actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more,” even if they “don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.” She adds that “we have a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process.”
McLaughlin’s idea of due process is notably different from the right that the Supreme Court upheld last week, when it ruled that suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua “are entitled to notice and [an] opportunity to be heard” before they are deported. According to federal officials, the government’s methods are infallible, so there is no need for hearings—a position that is plainly inconsistent with due process as it is ordinarily understood.
President Donald Trump sought to avoid judicial review of these cases by invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used, 127-year-old statute. In a March 15 proclamation, Trump implausibly asserted that Tren de Aragua qualifies as a “foreign nation or government” and that its criminal activities within the United States amount to an “invasion or predatory incursion.”
The Supreme Court’s decision did not address those dubious propositions. But even assuming that Trump is correctly interpreting the law, all nine justices agreed, his targets have a “well established” Fifth Amendment right to contest their designation as “alien enemies.”
Notwithstanding McLaughlin’s assurances, the need for that opportunity is clear. In the lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court’s order, five Venezuelans threatened with deportation insisted
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