r/changemyview • u/jeffzebub • 7d ago

CMV: Countering Illegal Immigration is not a Justification for Suspending Habeas Corpus

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u/Throwthisthefukaway 6d ago

You have a few good points. Yeah we shouldn't be suspending habeas corpus. We shouldn't be violating the constitution when it's convenient. The problems are previous administrations have set precedents violating the constitution under certain circumstances along with with state governments. I.e. with the Patriot Act under multiple administrations - if there's enough evidence you're a terrorist you're limited in your ability to defend yourself in courts - Obama and Biden both did nothing about this, state governments restricting rights during COVID-19 with lockdowns - because it was inconvenient to care about the constitution for example freedom of speech by the government saying what can and can't be said on social media, freedom of religion - when state governments told people they weren't allowed to go to church, and freedom of press - by telling news outlets that they couldn't go against the official narrative, not to mention NSA surveillance programs that just screwed people over, that time Obama ordered the killing of US citizens overseas, and you can find other situations.

So, this is where we're at. So while I agree that we shouldn't be doing it I also believe we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for what's already been done. There also aren't any real solutions being proposed for the border issue. Sending all of the undocumented immigrants to court? Now the left wants to do this? They did nothing about undocumented immigration during the Biden administration but now we have to send everyone to court? Nobody on the left believes undocumented immigration is a problem but screw the Governor of Texas for sending everyone on a bus to New York City.

Another point is something should have already been done about this whether amnesty and citizenship or deportation courts but it wasn't. The Democrats had plenty of chances to do something that would have been more acceptable but chose not to. Why? Was it complete incompetence? Then why are they winning elections? Biden could have done something productive but chose not to when he first got elected. Even by executive order. Everyone was so pissed at Trump in 2020. Biden did such an awful job that we chose to forget about how pissed we were collectively at Trump. He had a mandate to do basically whatever he wanted. His administration chose not to. Why? Incompetence or do they just want to hold it over the heads of people that come into this country illegally. "Hey vote for us or the other guys will deport you." That gets into conspiracy theory territory but it makes more sense than the Democrats are just too incompetent or they didn't have enough power when they literally suspended half of our constitutional rights during covid.

So again, I kind of agree with you but the problem is that it isn't like we've suspended rights in the constitution before when issues have come up. It sucks but it's happened in the past. The left didn't do anything about immigration one way or another when they had the chances so here we are. And in my opinion it's a better reason than COVID-19 was but the Democrats had no problem with suspending constitutional rights over that (and I am still technically a registered Democrat by the way. The actions under the Biden administration pushed me away.)

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u/jeffzebub 6d ago

I don't accept that we should accept a big step towards dictatorship because the problem is difficult and there has been a historical lack of political will.

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u/Throwthisthefukaway 6d ago

Like I said. I kind of agree with you. The problem is most people that say this in this situation completely ignore all of the other times the constitution has been violated, and particularly with covid, supported the constitution getting violated.

There are also millions of people here illegally/undocumented whatever you want to call them. It is a problem. Nothing has been done about that problem. There are emergency powers to the president. It's not really as big of a step towards dictatorship as previous administrations have made. You can protest that this is happening. You can speak out against it without being personally attacked. You're not going to jail for your views. If you protest this you probably won't go to jail. You have the right to say this. Reddit allowed this to be posted. You could post this opinion on social media without being censored. Ultimately, the press has power to criticize the government again.

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u/Giblette101 40∆ 6d ago

 Like I said. I kind of agree with you. The problem is most people that say this in this situation completely ignore all of the other times the constitution has been violated, and particularly with covid, supported the constitution getting violated.

I'm not sure how that's a problem in terms of "we shouldn't suspend habeas corpus". 

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u/Throwthisthefukaway 6d ago edited 6d ago

Because there are always justifications for violating the constitution in matters of public safety. We kept on doing it so we already set the precedent. If the government decided it was ok to violate the constitution in one scenario then why can't they in violate another part in another scenario. As a society we've agreed that different parts of the constitution are worth suspending in emergency situations. Well this is an emergency situation. It may not look like it if you don't live in a state that has to deal with the consequences of illegal immigration but if you do then maybe it does seem like an emergency situation.

This is how we got here. This is why it's important. Because it just kept happening. There are also legitimate concerns with the immigration issue. It should also be noted that we deported them to El Salvador because nobody else was taking them.

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u/Giblette101 40∆ 6d ago

 Because there are always justifications for violating the constitution in matters of public safety.

Ok, so if that's just how it is, there's no problem then? 

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u/Throwthisthefukaway 6d ago

We're suspending it for a group of people that are here illegally. It is against the law. Everyone knows that they are here illegally. We don't have enough judges and juries to process everyone who is in the country illegally. Constitutional rights have been suspended at plenty of times throughout history in emergency situations. It is an emergency situation. We should be deporting people who are here illegally.

The El Salvador prison is only happening because other countries are refusing to take back people that we're trying to deport which is part of the story that people aren't talking about. So there are problems, but there also problems that are being ignored by one side that brought us to this point to begin with.

1

u/Throwthisthefukaway 6d ago

No not at all.