Joyce Vance recently wrote about the “unseemly” campaign by the Justice Department, with Attorney General Pam Bondi leading the charge, “to paint Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man they have acknowledged was illegally sent to a prison used to house terrorists in El Salvador, as a bad guy.’
Vance goes on to say that why Bondi thinks Garcia is a bad buy, the backstory, is beside the point. What is on point is
that Abrego Garcia, criminal or saint, was denied his due process rights by the government, and in this country, people are entitled to those rights. Under our Constitution, people, whether criminals or not, whether citizens or not, are entitled to notice before action is taken against them and to a hearing in front of a judge to sort out any issues.
While a federal judge has made the directed Bondi to make this right, she has responded by saying that “America is safer because he is gone. Maryland is safer because he is gone.”
We must ask ourselves if we really want the likes of Pan Bondi or Donald Trump deciding, without due process, that a person is guilty of a crime because they have heard some things that may or may not be true. Unfortunately, we have once again to learn lessons that we thought were well understood. Unless we are all afforded the right to due process, it will not be long before no one is.
;
