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Comment by ProjectArcturis | Hacker News Reader

I'm not trying to convince you that illegal immigrants shouldn't be deported. What I would like to convince you is that any time the government takes action against a person, the government should have to prove their case in open court, and the person should have a fair chance to defend themselves.

Is this particular person MS-13? Did he have a legal right to be here? You don't know. None of us do, not for sure.

10 years ago, the idea that the government could sweep people off the streets and deliver them to a foreign prison with no trial or recourse would have been seen as absurd by every part of the political spectrum.

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I think it's also absurd that the media is painting this guy as some innocent victim. He is an MS-13 gang member. He beat his wife, to the point that she filed a restraining order against him. There is evidence that he was engaging in human trafficking. Citizens have rights to trial. Those who have entered the country illegally do not have the same legal rights that citizens do.

That's a terrible idea. Everyone needs trials or the government can make up a quick lie about anyone (or make a mistake about anyone) and then their rights disappear.

And in general, bad people still deserve trials. There is no crime you can point to someone doing that changes that.

I'm not saying they don't deserve some form of due process, but they are not entitled to full on trials that citizens get.

Due process could be as simple as can you prove that you have a legal right to be in this country? If yes, you can stay, if no, then you get deported. He absolutely should have had due process prior to being deported. I am not arguing against that.

From everything I've been able to gather on this story, the issue isn't really whether he should have been deported, it's that there was a legal order preventing him from being deported to the country of El Salvador specifically because a rival gang in the country would kill him for being a member of MS-13.

If the accusation is as simple as "you don't have a right to be in the country" what makes proving it different from a real trial?

> From everything I've been able to gather on this story, the issue isn't really whether he should have been deported, it's that there was a legal order preventing him from being deported to the country of El Salvador specifically because a rival gang in the country would kill him for being a member of MS-13.

If there's only one place you could reasonably be deported to, and there's an order saying you can't be deported there, then you can't be deported and you effectively have legal residency.

>He is an MS-13 gang member. He beat his wife, to the point that she filed a restraining order against him. There is evidence that he was engaging in human trafficking.

Again, these are EXACTLY the sorts of allegations that should be adjudicated in court. Citizens and non-citizens all have the right to a fair trial before imprisonment.

If all this is true, why couldn't the government try and convict him of a crime?

Because they couldn't, of course. The evidence is made up and parroted by useful idiots to justify the end of the rule of law.

They should have properly convicted him in court then.

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