March 20, 2019
While we were still reeling from the aftershock of the racist terrorist attack in New Zealand, or busily grabbing our popcorn to watch the Twitter feud between Trump and Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that may have flown under the radar. Nielsen v. Preap is an ominous sign of how each branch of government is contributing to a two-tiered white supremacist society, with insurmountable barriers for Black and Brown people.
In Nielsen v. Preap, the Court ruled, by a 5-4 majority, that ICE could detain immigrants indefinitely, without bond, if they had previously been convicted of a crime. In the case at hand, the respondent, Mony Preap, was a lawful permanent resident with two drug convictions. Although Preap was released from custody for those offenses in 2006, ICE used them as the rationale for his apprehension in 2013, seven years later, after Preap was released from jail following an arrest, (Source: Nielsen v. Preap, 586 U.S.___ (2019)).
The majority was interpreting the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, a 1996 statute signed into law by Bill Clinton. This law dramatically expanded the categories of crimes that made an immigrant eligible for deportation and made that change retroactive. It provided that anyone apprehended within 100 miles of the border had no right to a hearing before a judge, removing discretion from immigration judges. Lastly, it foreclosed avenues to legalization for thousands of people by limiting eligibility for “cancellation of removal” to immigrants who had been in the country ten years (rather than seven); raising the standard for remaining from “extreme hardship,” to “exceptional and unusual hardship;” and capping the number of immigrants that could be granted this relief to 3000 per year, (Source: “The disastrous, forgotten 1996 law that created today’s immigration problem,” by Dara Lind, Vox.com, 4/28/16).
Even before the creation of ICE and the elevation of a white nationalist to the presidency, IIRIRA caused deportations to skyrocket, (Source: ibid). Yesterday’s decision gives a judicial imprimatur to the jackbooted sadists eagerly hunting immigrants like prey. Immigrants are now at risk of being consigned to Kafkaesque confinement where they never receive due process and are vulnerable to a parade of horrors that we never thought would be sanctioned by American law in the 21st Century.
Trump has relentlessly demagogued the issue of immigration, repeatedly dehumanizing people seeking asylum as “invaders” and “terrorists.” His administration’s Department of Homeland Security has unabashedly traumatized countless children through its child separation policy, which it further exacerbated by purposely failing to maintain any records that would allow families to be reunited.
We have recently learned that thousands of immigrant children may have been sexually abused in U.S. detention centers, according to a Justice Department Report. “The federal government received more than 4500 complaints in four years,” including of sexual abuse of minors by adult personnel at these facilities, (Source: “Thousands of Immigrant Children Said They Were Sexually Abused in U.S. Detention Centers, Report Says,” by Matthew Haag, The New York Times, 2/27/19).
While this decision is clearly evidence that Trump is not the only white supremacist in our federal government, we must be careful to heed the fact that the statute this opinion upheld was signed into law by a charismatic Democrat who convinced his party that the path to power was through repackaged Republican policies, like IIRIRA, “welfare reform,” and the 1994 crime bill. As we survey the 2020 field, we should never forget that animating philosophy underpinning much of what is deemed “conservative” policy is now, and has always been, racism and there have always been politicians willing to exploit it. Make your choice accordingly.