Supreme Court CEMENTS Trump's Ability To Strip Due Process - Rights Are A Thing Of The Past
By: Desmond Price
Before we start with today’s episode, I just wanted to say the work here at Independent Thought is not funded by billionaires or corporations. It’s funded by you, the readers of our account. Your support is what allows me to continue to bring you the news. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today for access to our exclusive paid-members only posts, and to support our work. Thank you.
“The Government takes the position that, even when it makes a mistake, it cannot retrieve individuals from the Salvadoran prisons to which it has sent them,” she said.
“The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal.
History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.”
Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, gave a dissent yesterday that stopped me dead in my tracks, & I immediately knew that this was the story I needed to share with all of you today.
It’s been easy for me to get caught up with the whiplash effect of the news cycle. I confess, that the constant barrage of stories has made it difficult for me to focus on any one particular story & deliver it here.
However, today the choice was pretty clear.
If a Supreme Court Justice is saying this on the record, I think it’s worth paying attention to. Could this just be the beginning for Trump ultimately going after U.S. citizens?
Sometimes that speech feels a little hyperbolic & reactionary, but Justice Sotomayor seems to believe yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling is in fact laying the ground work for such a future.
Before we go any further, allow me to share some more details about yesterday’s ruling, for context sake.
Supreme Court sides with Trump over Alien Enemies Act deportations despite ‘extraordinary threat to rule of law
A divided court on Monday night agreed to lift a judge’s order that temporarily blocked the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport people from the U.S. while a legal challenge plays out.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s liberal justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.
The 5-4 decision — with the court’s women dissenting — follows a federal appeals court’s rejection of the president’s attempt to throw out a ruling from District Judge James Boasberg.
In his proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act for only the fourth time in U.S. history, Trump stated that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”
The Alien Enemies Act — which was most recently previously used to round up Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II — grants the president authority to remove “alien enemies” during wartime or a “predatory incursion or invasion” by a foreign power.
An important piece of context for this story is its presentation in the media by the Trump regime. They are alleging that this is nothing more than an attempt by them to oust gang members out of the country. Their claim is that the Venezuelan Government has sent gang members to our country & now they are getting rid of them.
Not sending them back to their country mind you, but to a prison in El Salvador. Prisons internationally known as some of the most brutal on Earth, for how they violate human rights.
Not only that, but usually people sent to these prisons, never in fact return after they’re sent there.
So Trump wants to round these people up, some even children, & send them to the most brutal prison on the planet, that they might never leave. Now, he has the power to do this, without any proof at all. His desires are no longer bound by due process, he can condemn anyone he sees fit…
If you are not already concerned, let’s once again check in with Justice Sotomayor for more of her feelings on this story.
Sotomayor, writing in the Supreme Court’s dissent, said the majority’s “legal conclusion is suspect” and made a decision “without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador”
“What if the Government later determines that it sent one of these detainees to [El Salvador’s megaprison] in error? Or a court eventually decides that the President lacked authority under the Alien Enemies Act to declare that Tren de Aragua is perpetrating or attempting an ‘invasion’ against the territory of the United States?” she asked.
Sotomayor said the administration’s conduct in this case “poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law.”
“That a majority of this Court now rewards the Government for its behavior with discretionary equitable relief is indefensible,” she wrote. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this,” she emphasized.
Source - Yahoo News
Trump now has the power to allege someone is in a gang & send them to hell on Earth, without ever having to prove anything in Court.
That’s what yesterday’s ruling has done.
This country was founded in an attempt to escape the tyrannical rule of a brutal empire, but slowly over the years, we have become the brutal empire.
None of this a joke.
How long until Trump expands his aim & sends American citizens to these prisons?
We are very rapidly descending into territory that we used to joke about. I can stress enough, how important it is to share information like this. It’s incredibly vital that more people understand what’s going on
Stay in community
Support each other
Uplift voices that are fighting back
Stand in solidarity with those under attack
Share information
We protest again on April 19th.
Let’s bring more people this time.
Until next time,
Desmond
Thank you for being a member of the Independent Thought Substack.
As of today, we have 12,562 readers of this publication!
Welcome to all of our new readers & thank you for being a part of our growing newsletter!
If you appreciated this post, please share it on social media or with a friend.
If you liked this post, please click the heart ❤️ button & 🔄 button. This helps Independent Thought get recommended more within Substack.
This newsletter is 100% reader-funded. Please become a paid subscriber to support our work.
This made me feel ill upon reading it. Democracy in America is dead. I weep for our country.
Horrifying