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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

This just seems like a power grab to empower federal level personal thugs for the executive branch.

Most of these departments have rules about how they use our data. ICE now gobbles it all up and can use it without rules by a department that operates with little regard and lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution.

The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it). Whatever rules we thought there were seem to be out the window because someone magically moved data or ICE got to do it or so on ...

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> lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution

Almost the entire US constitution applies to non-citizens in the country, with some small exceptions like voting and holding public office.

You’re technically correct, but in the last few decades a great deal of legal scholarship has gone into convincing the relevant parties that this isn’t so.

All that matters is what the supreme court believes that the constitution and laws mean.

It's true that if you applied prior judicial standards that its crystal clear the constitution and bill of rights extend beyond just protecting citizens. Same for the law. However, with a lot of the recent rulings it seems that now "might makes right" and "if the president does it, it's not illegal".

Both the judicial and legislative bodies have ceded nearly all their power to the executive. We're in for a bumpy ride.

This started following 9/11 and every administration since has pushed hard for growing executive power. I agree it's sad the supreme court can be battered to slowly whittle down some fundamental ideas America was founded on.

9/11 super-charged it, but the project of putting all power in the presidency started with Nixon. "If the president does it, it's not illegal".

Reagan ramped it up by pulling some similar moves to what Trump is doing. The Chevron doctrine came from Reagan admin running the EPA into the ground.

Close — All that matters is what Leonard Leo believes. That’s _his_ Supreme Court majority[1], and this is their happy ending — five of those justices were educated in his Federalist Society pipeline, vetted and selected through networks hand‑built by Leo… riding the Trump wave to judicial and political dominance, despite the turbulence[2] [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/11/24/nx-s1-5199049/federalist-soci...

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/30/trump-federalist-so...

Its very dangerous when it doesn't. Saying due process only applies to citizens, government can just label anyone they don't like a noncitizen and with no due process, those people will never be able to challenge it.

I don't think it's ever been the case of "convincing" in my or my parents' lifetimes.

9/11 just gave the bigwigs the excuse to tell the masses that if you didn't agree you are a terrorist.

I'm not going further because its a quagmire.

Turns out the law is just two in the ink, one in the pinky finger in the air "I swear!". But in the end, the law is in people, the society is in people, not in paper, not in officials, not in institutions.

If the people carry something and change their minds and moods, have fun holding back that energy with a creaking dam made of paper. Even this Ice nightmare, was voted in democratic and will be one day, when the mood has swung again, pushed back by the people in some colorful revolution.

On paper, but the average citizen and current admin disagree. The check & balances also don't seem to work.

I'm an average citizen and I believe non-citizens have rights. And so do most of the people I know. So if you believe that, then recognize that that's just the consensus in your clique.

Average citizens are not on this platform.

Average citizens are commenting on YT and FB.

Most citizens are average and I don't see mass strikes while things are getting stripped away.

This.

There are some differences for illegal immigrants, though. For example they don't have the right to due process under expedited removal (passed by Bill Clinton in 1996).

This is a little misleading. Under Clinton, they could basically just turn them around at a port of entry. Eventually (2004) this was expanded to people within 100 miles of a border within 2 weeks of entering the country, and then in 2020 they _dramatically_ expanded this to people anyone who has been here for less than 2 years, and that has not been tested in court, really.

This is sort of a classic example of a slippery slope, FWIW. As soon as you deny anybody due process, the category of people that applies to will just constantly expand.

Now, there's basically nothing stopping immigration officials from immediately deporting anybody they want, citizen, non-citizen, illegal or legal immigrant.

> Now, there's basically nothing stopping immigration officials from immediately deporting anybody they want, citizen, non-citizen, illegal or legal immigrant.

What nonsense. We have the courts. There must be a valid determination made that a person entered illegally for expedited deportation to apply. Due process applies to that determination - if it is not made correctly then sue. But more importantly why on earth would it not be made correctly? If you can’t prove that you’re a US citizen then something is very wrong.

It’s tricky to argue it in court if you have already been deported to a prison in a foreign country.

> There must be a valid determination made that a person entered illegally for expedited deportation to apply.

Are you arguing about the way it should be or making a statement about the way things currently are?

How do you prove you are not an illegal immigrant when picked up off the street? Surely there must be some due process around the determination of your illegal status.

That’s not true. They have the right to due process, as enshrined in the constitution. Clinton did not suspend that right he merely limited specific legal options available.

Does anything other than due process rights help for people facing deportation?

Im confused. What else could there possibly be than due process? Force?

I meant, what other rights might be relevant in that situation?

"Due process" is the most important right for everyone. It's what determines if someone should even be deported in the first place.

Without it, the executive gets to just say "that person shouldn't be here" and they can send them wherever the whims of the government are in the day.

Due process is how someone says "Hey government, you've made a mistake".

It isn't just due process. It's "I'm a US citizen, you can't legally deport me" Due process is what enables making that argument at all.

Certainly it’s important! But I’m wondering what other constitutional rights might prevent deportations. It seems like for non-citizens, due process alone will often be just a delaying action?

The 4th, the 8th, and the 9th amendments I'd say all should be applied in deportation actions.

4th because of "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" A warrantless search and seizure seems to be pretty unconstitutional. (See: ICE rolling up to farms and home depots and arresting everyone brown there)

The 8th

> nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

It seems both cruel and unusual to imprison people in concentration camps without enough food or water. It further seems pretty cruel to send people to countries not of origin known to torture. (See SECOT and Alligator Alcatraz)

The 9th

> The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This amendment is rarely applied which is a shame. It is the amendment that grants rights not listed by the constitution. It's what justifies the existence of human rights. It should not be controversial, but it seems like people should have the right to not be victims of genocide. Which is what mass deportation based on race ultimately is. (Homan is pretty open about race being the primary tool used to determine who's here illegally)

But beyond that, laid out in law is how deportation should function. That's where the actual process is laid out and that's what the executive is trying to avoid by rushing deportations.

100%. This also occurred to me. All of these things happening, in particular ICE, are blatantly unconstitutional. They are breaking the bill of rights. We are no longer living in a Republic, we are living in a Fascist state. It may not impact you now, but unless it is stopped, it will impact all of us. It doesn't matter what side you are on, if you would not want the opposite political side to do these things, you should not want your side to do them. Laws matter.

Since medicade wasn't established by the constitution, how do resident aliens get coverage? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I'd like to know.

If you want to go back to people dying in the streets because they are poor I guess that’s OK. But at some point it affects the health of everyone.

They also pay US taxes. They should benefit from those taxes like everyone else.

Some do.

If we're talking about federal Medicaid, no, they don't. That's citizens only. Some states like California extend the benefits of medicaid - but that's done with state funds. That's a states rights issue, not a federal issue.

Doesn't the fact that they class immigration violations as civil not criminal changes quite a bit what actions the government is restricted by/constitutional protections?

Getting access to Medicaid data for public health research is a giant pain in the ass with layers upon layers of red tape and IRBs and training about how you are allowed to handle it.

Only if it’s done in compliance. There was been little to show this administration follows the constitution, laws, or judicial orders let alone regulation. Especially when it comes to Stephen Miller there’s a significant “move fast and break the law” effort knowing judicial or legislative remedy can take a long time and is not assured given the penetration of captured justices and congressional independence. Especially in something like this where you have to establish standing, do discovery, etc, it’s an uphill battle to ensure compliance and the out of compliance stuff happens behind closed doors. With most of the federal government oversight functions either gutted or entirely captured by politically partisan sycophants, I would not hold my breath expecting any boundaries or relief.

This is what a real deep state looks like. “He who smelt it dealt it” seems to be a natural law.

Yes, I am assuming that ICE is not being held to the same (or any) standards and this is a real heap of bullshit

>Getting access to Medicaid data for public health research is a giant pain in the ass with layers upon layers of red tape and IRBs and training about how you are allowed to handle it.

Can you contextualize this comment? Are you saying it shouldnt be so difficult? Or that the government should have to jump through the same hoops? Or?

See previous reply to sibling comment

> The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care

Well plain 'rules' are going to be firmly within the executive's discretion to change. So what you need is statutes.

Statutes might not help much though, due to the immunity/pardon hack. And we may even be seeing SCOTUS reexamine if the president is bound by statute.

This is fine.

Indeed seems this way. Also consider the recent budget bill increased ICE's budget 3X and it's now more funded than the entire federal prison system.

This is roughly on the level of post Pearl Harbor internement of Japanese people, with potential to grow larger.

> Most of these departments have rules about how they use our data

Yes, but law enforcement agencies can typically be granted access for investigations, so long as the information is used only for such investigations. This is how CSAM distributors are hunted down. They don't literally need to amass evidence for each and every suspect and then get a warrant: they have a legally recognized enforcement directive, and so can perform surveillance of information sources where that people breaking those laws can be caught. Or in this case, they may have imperfect information on a variety of actual suspects, but not enough to find them or build a case. Medicaid data may provide those clues.

(it’s ok as long as their guy does it)

You put that between parentheses as if it was just a detail, but it is the fundamental question that nobody is talking about: what happens after their guy is gone?

Are they really ok with president AOC getting all of Trump’s powers? Or do they secretly hope democracy in the U.S. comes to a halt?

> Or do they secretly hope democracy in the U.S. comes to a halt?

Hope? They're working on it. And they're not being particularly secretive about it.

can you share some of these plans to halt democracy?

Sure thing! If you go to Trump's official store (ridiculous statement on its own for a sitting president), you'll find a whole lot of "Trump 2028" merch.

I personally can't think of many ways to be more blatant than that.

It's a joke to upset progs and commies. Looks like it is working as intended.

[flagged]

I’m pretty tuned in to the conservative water cooler, and I’ve heard three realistic theories on post-Trump executive power. To be clear, these are real opinions I’ve heard self-described Trump voters espouse—not my opinions:

1. Most of the federal judges and SCOTUS will overturn bits and pieces of executive power once a Democrat tries to use them. See Biden and school loan forgiveness. They firmly believe that Thomas and Alito will retire during this administration, and they hope Sotomayor or Kagan retires or dies. I’ve also heard noise about impeaching Barrett.

2. Democrats are too skittish to use executive power to do anything revolutionary with it. Even when they had a trifecta during the first Obama term they barely did anything with it.

3. Regardless of the other two points, it’s very unlikely for the Republicans to lose control of House and Senate again, and the Senate can revert to being effective when the executive is a Democrat. A Republican House can constantly submit articles of impeachment and a Democrat president will get bogged down dodging the accusations, even if they’re spurious.

> Democrats are too skittish to use executive power to do anything revolutionary with it. Even when they had a trifecta during the first Obama term they barely did anything with it.

This.

A lot of the focus these days is on SCOTUS, but most of what Trump is doing was already permitted by law for the executive branch well before he came into office. The real question is: Why didn't past presidents utilize that power that they clearly had?

> The real question is: Why didn't past presidents utilize that power that they clearly had?

The two parties have different platforms and have material differences in the way they govern, but the oligarchs that fund both sides of the aisle ultimately want the same thing - more money and power at the expense of the working class. Both sides are not the same, but both sides _are_ complicit.

That said, you'll notice that a lot of the whataboutism in this comments section tries to equivocate the policy of the two sides. It obviously false, but it's purposeful in that it's trying to bait responses that correct the record of the Democrats. A response that instead advocates for specific policy is much more productive and derails the attempt at making the conversation about red vs blue.

Conservatives really think they're going to keep Congress forever? They should look at how the "permanent Democratic majority" worked out.

Sorry, that should have said “lose control of both House & Senate,” i.e., they’ll probably control at least one.

It’s relatively easy for them to hold a close margin in the Senate, demographically speaking, and if internal migration patterns continue the number of “safely conservative” House districts will continue to rise.

If a democratic president is elected they will reverse their decisions until a GOP president is elected again.

I doubt that very much. I think what will happen is that the dems will run on doing that, get elected to do that, and then not do any of it, and nobody will really care or even remember. Everything will be cool because it’ll be a cool dem president and all the problems will be the republicans fault, just like obama.

>Are they really ok with president AOC getting all of Trump’s powers? Or do they secretly hope democracy in the U.S. comes to a halt?

They aren't even being remotely secretive about it.

> Are they really ok with president AOC getting all of Trump’s powers?

I can confidently predict that whatever out-the-arse-shadow-docket rulings SCOTUS have made for Trump will suddenly not apply to a Democratic president and the office will be hamstrung by executive limits pretty darn toot suite.

Secretly?

This isn't new at all and has been happening for decades, a continuous ratcheting up of Presidential and Executive Branch power since the dawn of the Cold War. Usually it's because of "national security," and it happens when both parties are in power. The march pretty much began with the National Security Act of 1947, though some might place it earlier with FDR and the New Deal. An argument can be made for both, with the left tending to blame the former and the right the latter. (I think the real answer is both to some extent but the National Security Act is the more significant of the two.)

An argument can be made after things like the second Iraq war that we have already entered the decadent empire phase of US history and the President effectively does have a great deal of dictatorial power. It's not supposed to be possible to wage a war like that without a congressional declaration, making such wars a pretty huge abdication of power by the legislative branch. If the President can just start a war on a whim, that power can be used to drag along the entire rest of the government.

Now, with ICE, we are establishing a lawless executive branch police force. This is just the unilateral power of the President to wage war coming home and being applied to domestic affairs. It will soon be possible, if it isn't already, for the President to order their own independent police to do anything, and if it is considered illegal the power of the pardon can be used to make that go away. The arbitrary power of the pardon is a pretty awesome power when you think about it.

When the ratchet gets far enough down this path we may indeed see a president remain in power forever like Xi Xinpeng. Trump may or may not be that person. If it's not him it might be the next, or the next. It could just as easily be a left-wing populist demagogue as a right-wing one depending on which way the winds happen to be blowing when the final ratchet click happens.

Rome continued to exist for quite some time after its Republic collapsed, but it was definitely the beginning of the end.

We've seen the GOP reaction at a State level. When a Dem governor is about to take office, the GOP legislature passes sweeping bills to limit executive power and the about-to-be-former GOP Governor signs them.

Consider that you're already having to ask this question 6 months into a 4 year term, and what happened the last time their guy lost an election.

I think HIPAA always had a carve-out for LE. Trump is lawless, but this might not be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606965

> The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it).

I doubt they'd care if a democratic president wanted to do the exact same thing...

Their job isn't to be benevolent.

Their job is to determine what is ACCORDING to the laws. The reality is, many legal protections only apply to US citizens - and it is EXPLICITLY for these reasons that they do.

The Privacy Act of 1974 applies only to citizens. The Patriot Act opened up a can of worms ripe for abuse that will probably never be sealed.

The executive branch can almost get away with murder by saying, "Well, we thought they were a terrorist, so..." Which does appear to be the defense they're trying to set up, saying anyone in any, way, shape or form related to Mexican gangs is a terrorist.

The Supreme Court doesn't really seem to be exceptionally awful.

They're obviously bias, and have been for a very long time, if you look at how they vote.

But the larger problem is that we have bad laws.

It's not the Supreme Court's job to override laws passed by congress because they're terrible or anti-American.

It's our job as voters to start caring about what matters.

> I doubt they'd care if a democratic president wanted to do the exact same thing...

Of course they would. They literally blocked Biden's student loan relief, calling it unconstitutional. These people are not there because they are exceptional legal scholars or because they established themselves as outstanding judges in their previous appointments. The six majority justices are there to help their side wield power, pure and simple. And they understand that part of that job is making it difficult for the other side to wield power. Because only their side is legitimate, you see.

> The Supreme Court doesn't really seem to be exceptionally awful.

The are exceptionally, extremely, extraordinarily awful. When the DC circuit court ruled on presidential immunity, legal scholars across the land pointed to the ruling as the probable last word, given how sterling the ruling was. Many were shocked that the Supreme Court even took the case up afterward. After all, what more was there to say? To have the SCOTUS overrule two centuries of established precedent in making the entire Executive branch above criminal law shocked just about everyone - this entirely for the purpose of keeping a single man out of jail.

> It's not the Supreme Court's job to override laws passed by congress because they're terrible or anti-American.

That is exactly their job, if said laws are unconstitutional.

Yes. The supreme court blocked student loan forgiveness because Congress did not appropriate funds for that purpose.

It's not their job to do things that are good or nice, it's to determine legality.

> The reality is, many legal protections only apply to US citizens - and it is EXPLICITLY for these reasons that they do.

This is just explicitly not true in our constitution. If you're a textualist, you're not allowed to believe this - sorry.

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