Zeldin: Selective Civil Rights

David Posnett — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 23:52:35 +0000

Michael Anthony writes on FB: Lee Zeldin, the absentee Congressman, is concerned about Russian spy target Carter Page’s civil rights, but refuses to see the civil rights violations inherent in The Dept of Homeland Security’s administrative warrants used to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. ACLU says they violate 4th amendment as administrative warrants don’t possess same legal heft as judicial warrants. Come on, Lee, burnish your civil liberty credentials over a real issue.

Added by David P:

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …^[6]

Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:

[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …^[7]

The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment provides that no warrant can be issued if there is no probable cause to conduct search or seizure. Administrative inspections are also protected by the Fourth Amendment. However, administrative agency searches do not strictly adhere to the Fourth Amendment and the requirement of probable cause.

The due process clauses apply to both natural personas as well as to “legal persons” (that is, corporate personhood) as well as to individuals, including both citizens and non-citizens. The Fifth Amendment due process was first applied to corporations in 1893….The due process clauses also apply to non-citizens who are within the United States, although the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that non-citizens can be stopped, detained, and denied past immigration officials at points of entry (e.g. at a port or airport) without the protection of the Due Process Clause because, while technically on U.S. soil, they are not considered to have entered the United States.^[15]^[16]

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process_Clause

https://administrativelaw.uslegal.com/administrative-agency-investigations/searches-and-seizures/

Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982) (“Appellants argue at the outset that undocumented aliens, because of their immigration status, are not ‘persons within the jurisdiction’ of the State of Texas, and that they, therefore, have no right to the equal protection of Texas law. We reject this argument. Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a ‘person’ in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as ‘persons’ guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”).
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 (2001) (“Although Mezei, like the present cases, involves indefinite detention, it differs from the present cases in a critical respect. As the Court emphasized, the alien’s extended departure from the United States required him to seek entry into this country once again. His presence on Ellis Island did not count as an entry into the United States. Hence, he was ‘treated,’ for constitutional purposes, ‘as if stopped at the border.’ … And that made all the difference. It is well established that certain constitutional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders. … But once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.”).

non-citizens – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Zeldin: Selective Civil Rights