Due Process, A Scales Of Justice Discussion Of Sorts

This is a bit if a different kind of writing today.  More an education than an introspection that I feel compelled to share in light of the fact that certain students at certain Colleges and Universities have been detained by ICE. And there is uproar in the name of Due Process.  
 
So.
 
Due Process.
 
Due process means that people can't be deprived of life, liberty or property UNLESS the deprivation happens according to the rules of our legal system, including access to courts and lawyers. 
 
For instance, the cops can't just walk into your house and take your computer; they have to get a warrant for it first -- THEN they can walk in and take your computer.  And if your computer has, let’s say, damning evidence that you received funding from Hamas to organize Anti-Israel, Anti-Sematic protest on say, your college campus, which may be Columbia, for example. Well, then you can be detained.  And arrested.  (Purely a hypothetical, I know nothing about Mahmoud Khalil's computer.)
 
You can also be arrested without a warrant.  Like let’s say you were at one of your Anti-Israel, Anti-Sematic protests and you grabbed a Jewish student trying to get past you and into the building where his class is being held.  And you grab him and throw him on the ground and kick him in the head.  And a police officer sees you.  You can be arrested in that moment.
 
 A lawful arrest requires EITHER an arrest warrant (the computer example) OR probable cause (kicking a Jewish student in the head).
 
And you can get detained (in jail if you’re arrested for a crime, in an immigration detention center if you’re arrested for an immigration violation). 
 
AND
 
It doesn’t mean that if you are detained, it has to be near where you live. Your due process rights are not being violated if you are detained away from, say, your college campus where you kicked the kid in the head. (Purely a hypothetical to make a point…don’t go Googling if Mahmoud Khalil kicked someone. He didn’t. He just lied on his visa and green card applications and engaged in, among other things, some pretty rad activities that connect him to some pretty rad terrorist organizations.)
 
Back to being detained. 
 
If you are detained it does not have to be near where you live. There are no immigration detention centers in NYC. There's one in Buffalo, almost 400 miles away from say, Columbia for example, but most of our immigration detention centers are in California, Texas, Arizona and Louisiana.
 
What Due Process means is:
 
- You only get arrested if there’s probable cause—probable cause to believe you committed a crime if the cops or FBI are arresting you, Probable cause to believe you committed an immigration violation or are deportable if it’s ICE, like if you are friends with terrorist or maybe went to a Hezbollah leaders funeral.  (Purely hypothetical, I don't know if Rumeysa Ozturk went to anyone's funeral when she was not at Tufts.)
 
- You have the right to talk to a lawyer (if you can afford it, or there’s a pro bono one willing to represent you, or you’re arrested for a crime and are poor enough to qualify for a public defender).
 
- If arrested without a warrant, you have the right to a hearing to determine if there was probable cause.
 
- You have the right to a hearing to determine if you did the thing they accuse you of (or, for immigration cases, that you committed the immigration violation or are deportable).
 
Oh, and one last thing:
 
Your Due Process rights are not being violated if border guards refuse to let you into the Country if you are not a US citizen. Permission to cross the border of a foreign country is not "life, liberty or property."  It's not a right. 

It's a permission.
 
It's a permission that any country is free to grant or deny to any foreigner. So even if someone has a visa, they can legally be refused entry for any reason. 

​Ok...

So... do I think that there may be some Due Process violations going on.  Yeah, likely that is true.  Do I think that there are also a lot of detentions going on that are adhering to our Due Process guidelines.  Yup, that too.  

AND

That's not what this writing is about.  It's about how Due Process works.  So that when we have those other conversations about how we feel about all this.—well, we are educated in our arguments.  Which this is not.  An Argument.  This is an education.
 
Questions?

Ok, good.  
 
(And, thanks to D. Hall for much of the Due Process information in this writing)

​