Deportation Plans Don’t Exist to Please Migrants
Commentary
December 19, 2024
By Matt O’Brien
President-elect Trump hasn’t even taken office again and the chattering classes are already having a meltdown about what they see as the negative effects “mass deportations” will produce.
A significant amount of the pearl-clutching is based on claims that it’s somehow cruel to deport uninvited guests who happened to have avoided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) long enough to put down roots in the United States. This is an utterly illogical argument and one that would never be tolerated in connection with any other crime or civil violation.
This specious argument persists because people who advocate for illegal aliens deliberately misrepresent U.S. immigration law. They insist that illegal aliens have a plethora of rights that must be protected. They portray a hearing before an immigration judge as a “trial.” And they lead the public to believe that a deportation order is a “punishment” akin to a criminal sentence. But none of this is actually true.
As far as rights go, way back in 1892, the Supreme Court held that, with regard to aliens in removal proceedings, “the decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by Congress are due process of law.” In plain English, that means that immigration violators are entitled to a hearing before the Immigration Court and to the appellate process set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
https://www.irli.org/deportation-plans-dont-exist-to-please-migrants/
