Letter to the Editor: Submitted by Thomas Hill

To the Editor:

Mr. Lowell Engle in a letter to the editor (March 11) challenged the veracity of my assertions in my letter to the editor (February 25) regarding ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the Trump administration. Mr. Engle must not be following the news, otherwise he would have seen the truth of my comments with his own eyes.

Shortly after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, Vice President JD Vance declared ICE agents are “protected by absolute immunity.” Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and a major architect of Trump’s immigration policy, also asserted, “To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.” As constitutional law scholars pointed out, both Vance and Miller are wrong. Federal agents cannot break state or federal law with impunity.

Although Trump claims they are arresting only noncitizens who are the worst of the worst, nearly 40% of all those arrested by ICE in Trump’s first year back in office did not have any criminal record at all and were only accused of civil immigration offenses like living in the U.S. illegally or overstaying their permission to be in the U.S.

Last year, the Trump administration changed the 30-year policy which held that immigrants who have lived in this county for decades can be subjected to detention only if they were deemed a danger to the society or a flight risk.

And they were afforded the right to a judicial hearing. Now, such immigrants are subjected to mandatory detention and deportation. Some of the detention facilities are worse than many jails and prisons, being overcrowded, dangerous, and unsanitary.

Many federal judges in Minnesota, New Jersey, and West Virginia have ordered immediate release or a bond hearing for the migrants and accused the administration of failing to follow the law.  U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin of West Virginia wrote in a February opinion: “Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government - masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind - are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process.”

And U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnson, also of West Virginia, said: “If the government may simply seize someone without due process, there is no check on its ability to seize anyone... Fortunately, our Constitution demands more, including the rule of law, as opposed to the rule of unchecked executive fiat.”

Trump supporters who uncritically accept the administration’s lies, if not careful, will follow him down the rabbit hole into authoritarianism and lawlessness. I hope they can see the deceptions and choose the Constitution and the rule of law.

Thomas Hill
Lansing/Cedar Falls