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Comment by sjducb | Hacker News Reader

It doesn’t matter who he is.

The problem is that he hasn’t had an opportunity to plead his case.

Good law enforcement officers regularly make honest mistakes. Courts are a safeguard against this.

Imagine that you get caught up in an immigration raid. Maybe you were at a Mexican restaurant. ICE shows up and half the staff quickly sit at tables pretending to be customers. ICE arrests everyone, including you.

Will ICE let you go home to go look for your birth certificate? If your wife hires a lawyer what process will your lawyer use to present your birth certificate to ICE?

Due process and the rule of law protects you from the arbitrary power of the state.

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All I know is that if I was an illegal immigrant or "refugee" I'd be heading for that border as fast as possible.

It matters to me because I want to understand why he was sent to that prison.

I get it, you want someone to admit he was an undocumented immigrant, but sending an undocumented immigrant to an El Salvador prison without due process is repugnant. And, to unpack that further, sending prisoners to another country to wash your hands of them and how they are treated in captivity is repugnant in all cases, regardless of the crime. "Why he was sent to that prison" can be answered simply with "because this administration said so," and that is the problem that needs addressed, not whatever this man may or may not have done.

I doubt he was a random immigrant. There must be something else to this story.

And you're not getting that that's not the point. Are you saying that you think it is good public policy for the US to send some prisoners to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, and you're just reserving judgment until you are able to determine whether or not this specific guy deserved it?

Moreover, in some countries it's actually honorable to be on a "wanted" list, like terrorist, extremist, tax evasion etc. Because that lists are often used as oppression against opponents. E.g. Russia routinely does that against pacifists. Khodorkovsky was jailed for 10 years for "stealing" from his own company after he announced his West-leaning political ambitions.

Incompetence? What if he was sent to El Salvador by accident?

Maybe everyone is calling him a gang member to cover their own asses?

Without a hearing we don’t know.

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