JD Vance is apparently aware of the controversy surrounding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration mistakenly sent to a Salvadoran prison, and the vice president disapproves.
In fact, the Ohio Republican published a 300-word statement on the matter to social media this week, which only served to make the controversy worse. Vance began by asserting that Joe Biden “allowed approximately 20 million illegal aliens” into the United States — a ridiculous figure for which the administration has no evidence — before getting to the heart of his position:
To say the administration must observe ‘due process’ is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors. To put it in concrete terms, imposing the death penalty on an American citizen requires more legal process than deporting an illegal alien to their country of origin.
Vance went on to claim that journalists and “the far-left” are “obsessing” over Abrego Garcia, whom he characterized as “an MS-13 gang member.” The vice president concluded with a weird conspiracy theory about nefarious American forces who want, in his words, “ratification of Biden’s illegal migrant invasion.”
There’s no point in dwelling on every individual error of fact and judgment in Vance’s rant. We could spend some time noting that he’s wrong about Biden-era border crossings; his misuse of the phrase “begs the question”; his characterization of Abrego Garcia that remains far from proven; his reference to an “invasion” that didn’t occur, and so on — but let’s instead get to the heart of the matter.
What Vance argued — in writing — is that due process rights are, for all intents and purposes, optional. The “status of the accused” should, according to the vice president, be considered when weighing whether the American system will comport with our constitutional principles.
This is a twisted perspective, but it isn’t unique in contemporary Republican politics. Stephen Miller, a highly influential White House advisor, also recently argued online, “Dear marxist judges, If an illegal alien criminal breaks into our country the only ‘process’ he is entitled to is deportation.”
Similarly, a variety of Fox News hosts have spent the last several weeks deriding due process as an unnecessary nicety and an impractical annoyance. Even on Capitol Hill, Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana recently argued in public, “You violated the law, you don’t get due process.”
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recently wrote a memorable column about the underlying legal principle, which quoted Jeffrey Rosen, who runs the nonpartisan National Constitution Center. “The very foundation of constitutionalism, which means a government according to law rather than autocratic whim, is the due process of law,” he told the columnist. “What distinguishes a constitutional officeholder from an absolute monarch or a tyrant is that he is bound by the Constitution and by laws.” Milbank added, “Without due process, there is no free market, because private property can be taken without justification or explanation. Without due process, there are no civil liberties, for a person’s freedom can be taken for any reason, or none at all. “Without due process, you have what we see today: a leader using a wartime statute in peacetime to declare certain people to be dangerous gang members without providing any evidence, then imprisoning them without charges and finally denying the authority of the courts and defying a court order requiring the leader to obey the laws as written. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the road to despotism.” The vice president’s rejection of these foundational ideas is as scary as anything he’s ever said or done.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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