Conservative Hatred of Civil Liberties

Ever since the 1960s, when conservatives became convinced that the procedural protections in the Bill of Rights were nothing more than constitutional “technicalities” designed to let guilty people go free, conservatives have shown a deep hatred for civil liberties. The conservative antipathy toward civil liberties is now manifesting itself in President Trump’s war on illegal immigration.

One of the best examples of this phenomenon involves the Venezuelan immigrants that Trump officials have renditioned to El Salvador pursuant to an agreement that Trump entered into with Salvadoran strongman Nayib Bukele.

There are two important points to note about those renditions:

1. Deportation does not equal incarceration. Deportation simply means evicting a person from a country. Incarceration involves punishment for the commission of a criminal offense.
2. Those Venezuelan immigrants were not simply transported to El Salvador and deposited there. That is, they were not free to move about the country or to leave the country. Instead, they were immediately taken to Bukele’s infamous jail called CECOT, which is renowned for torture and human-rights abuses.

Conservatives love the fact that those Venezuelan immigrants have not simply been deported but also because also the fact that they have been incarcerated in Bukele’s brutal prison for an indeterminate period of time. Conservatives rely on five arguments to justify the incarceration of the Venezuelan immigrants:

First, they say that the immigrants are “terrorists” and, therefore, there is nothing wrong with incarcerating them. But there is one big problem with that argument: The immigrants have not been convicted of terrorism in a court of law. Keep mind that terrorism is a federal criminal offense under the U.S. Code.

Conservatives respond that the executive branch shouldn’t need to convict terrorists of the federal crime of terrorism. Instead, the executive branch should simply wield the omnipotent power to determine who is a “terrorist” and then punish him accordingly.

In other words, no criminal indictments. No jury trials. No criminal prosecutions. No right to counsel. No sentencing. No Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. If the president, ICE, the Border Patrol, and the Justice Department determine that a person is a “terrorist,” as far as conservatives are concerned, that is the end of the story.

How long is the jail sentence? There is no sentence, at least not in the judicial sense of the term. Instead, under the conservative mindset, someone who has been labeled a “terrorist” can be kept incarcerated for as long as officials want him incarcerated. After all, he’s a “terrorist”! That’s why there are people who have been incarcerated at the U.S. government’s torture and prison camp at Guantanamo Bay for more than 20 years, with the full support of the conservative movement. By the same token, the same holds true for the immigrants how are now incarcerated in CECOT. They can be kept incarcerated for the rest of their lives without ever being convicted of terrorism. Their fate is now up to Salvadoran strongman and Trump ally Bukele.

Second, conservatives say that the Venezuelan immigrants are members of a violent Venezuelan gang named Tren de Aragua. However, once again, none of the immigrants has ever been convicted in a U.S. court of being a member of that gang. One reason might be that being a member of a gang in a foreign country might not even be a criminal offense here in the United States. But if it is, then the standard procedure is to indict, prosecute, convict, and sentence. None of that has been done. Yet, those Venezuelan immigrants are now incarcerated in a brutal prison in El Salvador, even though they haven’t been convicted of any crime, including the possible crime of being a member of a gang in a foreign country.

Third, conservatives say that because a small percentage of illegal immigrants commit violent acts against American citizens, there is nothing wrong with sending all illegal immigrants to El Salvador for punishment. This is, of course, a mindset of collective guilt and punishment. The idea is that since some illegal immigrants commit crimes, all illegal immigrants can be punished for the commission of such crimes.

Fourth, conservatives say that that Venezuelan gang is “invading” the United States and, therefore, it is okay to incarcerate and punish any Venezuelan immigrant who has entered the United States illegally. Yet, the argument is patently ludicrous. An invasion is what the U.S. government did to Iraq — soldiers, weaponry, armaments, planes, bombs, bullets, tanks, missiles, death, destruction, mayhem, torture, assassination, executions, and regime change. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, that Venezuelan gang isn’t doing any of those things.

Fifth, conservatives say that the Venezuelan immigrants illegally entered the United States and, therefore, are guilty of that criminal offense. But there is another big problem: They were never convicted of illegal entry. Moreover, they might have a solid defense to such charge in a criminal prosecution. That’s why we have trials — to determine whether a person is guilty of an offense or not. But conservatives say: We don’t need no stinking trials. Our law-enforcement officials know who is guilty and that’s all that is necessary.

One final important point: All of these conservative principles apply as much to American citizens as they do to Venezuelan immigrants. That’s because the “war on terrorism” is a “global” war — one that necessarily encompasses the United States and the American people. As we have learned in the post-9/11 era, U.S. officials, with the full support of the conservative movement, now wield the power to label any American citizen a “terrorist” and incarcerate him in a military prison, torture him, and incarcerate him for life — all without a trial. They obviously also now wield the power to do to American “terrorists” what they have done to those Venezuelan “terrorists.”

Thus, it should surprise no one that U.S. officials are now integrating their “war on terrorism” with their wars on immigrants and drugs. It enables them to expand their power and control over the American people — under the standard guise of keeping us “safe.” Given their longtime deep disdain for civil liberties, conservatives are loving and supporting this continued destruction of our rights and freedom.

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