This should be a un-ignorable reminder of the value of due process. Better a guilty person go free than an innocent person sent to their long, slow, undignified death.
I agree with you.
Now explain how can we scale the due process to deport everyone that entered here illegally in a reasonable timeframe. 15-30 million hearings will take a century to be resolved.
The system is not designed for such massive load in mind.
What level of false positives are you willing to tolerate - US nationals wrongly deported?
How many fatalities (including suicides) are you willing to tolerate in this process?
(fairly easy to imagine hypothetical situation: lawful US national gun owner with Hispanic name is shopped to immigration by his neighbours. ICE come to his house in the middle of the night to deprive him of his rights. Is he (a) legally (b) morally entitled to open fire on them? If not, what do all the 2nd amendment tyranny resistors mean? If so, isn't this going to be a huge mess?)
(edit: at the moment the only possible document would be a US passport, because a driving license doesn't prove nationality, so the 50% of Americans who don't have passports are SOL)
What paperwork do you have that confirms you are a citizen right now? Especially since birthright citizenship is now being thrown out the window.
One reason is that things like this happen, where every time is a chance for someone to be hurt, killed, or deported in a country where it is not uncommon for officers to beat or shoot people for perceived non-compliance:
> “I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and am a United States citizen,” Noriega said in his statement, adding that on Jan. 31, after buying pizza in Berwyn he was surrounded by ICE agents and arrested. Officers took away his wallet, which had his ID and Social Security card. “They then handcuffed me and pushed me into a white van where other people were handcuffed as well.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/03/14/us-citiz...
> Jensy Machado, who says he voted for President Donald Trump, told Telemundo 44 that on March 5, ICE agents blocked in his pickup truck not far from his Manassas home as he headed to work with two other men. He said the agents initially refused to let him show his REAL ID-compliant Virginia driver’s license, proof of his lawful status in the U.S.
> “They didn’t ask me for any ID,” he said. “I was telling the officer if I can give an ID, but he said to just keep my hands up and not moving. And then after that, he told me to get out of the car and then he put the handcuffs on me. And then he went to me and said how did I get into this country and if I was waiting for court or do I have any case? And I told him I was an American citizen, and he looked at his other partner, like, you know, smiling, like saying, ‘Can you believe this guy?’ Because he asked the other guy, ‘Do you believe him?’”
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/president-trump-politics/...