It\u2019s a scene out of pre-World War II Germany, or some dystopian movie about a failed American future. Agents, dressed in black, seize people from their homes, their workplaces, some even just off the street. They are taken to \u201cdetention centers\u201d. (Isn\u2019t it scary that aren\u2019t called jails? But jails imply courts and lawyers and rights \u2013 something these \u201cdetainees\u201d are denied). A few days later they are hustled on a bus, to an airport, and onto a chartered plane. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their destination: a maximum security prison in El Salvador, far from their homes in the United States, or even their birthplaces in Venezuela. They are stripped, x-rayed, searched and probed, their heads shaved, and given white t-shirts, socks, boxer shorts and sandals to wear. Then they are placed in cells big enough for 140 inmates. Propaganda movies of their rough treatment are carefully edited for full effect. They are gone, disappeared: in a foreign land with no sentence, no end of punishment, no lawyer or courts or questions. It\u2019s a \u201cdeal\u201d by the deal-making Presidents; Trump fills the cells with \u201cillegals\u201d, Bukele of El Salvador gets $6 million. It\u2019s a bargain at $20,000 a piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of them, I\u2019m sure, are very bad men. Some, I\u2019m sure, are members of Venezuelan gangs, and certainly up to no good in the United States. And some are not. They were all \u201cconvicted\u201d by \u201cgang sign\u201d; tattooed ink that supposedly link them to criminal activity. And it\u2019s on that \u201cevidence\u201d that these men are sent to one of the worst prisons in the world, the \u201cDevil\u2019s Island\u201d of our modern time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the fledgling United States was debating the Constitution, one of the biggest arguments was about what would guarantee \u201crights\u201d to the people of the United States. After all, there was (and is) no \u201cBill of Rights\u201d in English Common Law, no listing of the personal and criminal rights of the people. It is simply based on the precedence of Court decisions. Why would the new United States need more? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer was in the very birth of the new Nation. While the colonists demanded the \u201crights\u201d of British citizens, the British felt no need to allow them. After all, they were, \u201cjust colonists\u201d, \u201cAmericans\u201d, not British. The affronts that make up the majority of the Declaration of Independence are all about those exclusions. Those are what brought about Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the Constitution was written, with an acknowledged \u201cpolitical\u201d deal to get it ratified. The individual states would agree to the document, if (and only if), a \u201cBill of Rights\u201d was added. The British \u201cfooled us once\u201d, using an excuse to deny rights. Americans would not be fooled again. And so the first ten amendments were added to the Constitution almost immediately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Actually there were twelve proposed. The first was \u201ctoo technical\u201d enumerating how many representatives in the House, and was not ratified. And the second controlled the salary of Representatives and Senators. It was not approved with the other ten, but ultimately became the 27th<\/sup> Amendment to the Constitution in 1992). <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bill of Rights does not include the word \u201ccitizen\u201d. Instead, the rights are guaranteed to \u201cthe people\u201d (of \u201cWe the people, of the United States\u201d in the Preamble). From the beginning citizenship was not a requirement to attain \u201crights\u201d. You could be a \u201cperson\u201d without being a citizen, as far as rights were concerned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What are those rights? The right to practice religion, exercise and publish political speech, to assemble peaceably, and to ask the government to fix problems. People in the United States have a right to have a gun, and not have the military takeover property in times of peace. They also have the right to privacy, to not have their persons or property searched and seized without probable cause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They have the right to life, liberty and property, only restricted through \u201cdue process of law\u201d. The people have the right to a trial with legal representation, a jury of their peers, and to not be tried twice for the same crime (double jeopardy). And they have the right to not be given cruel or unusual punishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s \u201cthe people\u201d, not the citizens, that the Bill of Rights refers to. And yet, for those 234 men whisked away literally in the dead of night, there was no \u201cdue process\u201d, not even a right to a \u201cwrit of habeas corpus\u201d. (\u201cHabeas corpus\u201d is the requirement that the government tell in court, why someone is being held. It is so important that its written into the main body of the Constitution itself, Article I, Section 9, Clause 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201clegal\u201d justification of the Trump Administration is that these are \u201cillegals\u201d; bad men who have \u201cinvaded\u201d our country from Venezuela to commit crimes. And now, they are swept away without any reference to their rights as \u201cpeople\u201d in the United States. Are they all Venezuelan gang members? Is it possible some are not? Our government isn\u2019t proving anything in court, we are simply to take the word of \u201cImmigration Czar\u201d Tom Hohman that these are \u201cbad men\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What if there are some whose only offense was to come to the United States? They are all \u201cdisappeared\u201d, like the dissidents dropped from Argentinian Air Force planes over the ocean, or the Mexicans stolen off buses who end up buried in trenches in faraway fields. These are the examples that OUR government, the United States of America, is following. And they are doing it in the name of the American people; OUR name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not mine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lutheran theologian Martin Niemoller wrote about the Nazi actions taking control of Germany:<\/p>\n\n\n\n First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out<\/em> Then they came for me,<\/em>Citizens or People<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Legal or Illegal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Slippery Slope<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there was no one left to speak out for me<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n