I’m a lifelong New Yorker and we’ve had a terrible immigration crisis on our hands. It’s been reported that Mayor Eric Adams of New York City stated undocumented immigrants — that is, illegal immigrants — aren’t owed due process.

Notably, Eric Adams is enjoying due process as this is being written. He’s under federal indictment and presumed to be not guilty under our law.

But there is a growing bellowing of those who believe that the American Constitution should be for Americans only, and that due process and the rights afforded to people within the jurisdiction of the United States should be reserved for citizens only.

It sounds good on its own. America is for Americans! Those illegals broke the law to come here, we should just send them back where they came from without the expense of trial!

Well, least importantly, let me make an appeal to history.

But who cares about our history? We want results. We want to end the immigration crisis. And our politicians promise us that we can do that if we just give up a little due process. Problem solved.

Now let me make an appeal to your self-preservation.

Succinctly, if you take away due process rights from any one subclass of people, bad actors in government could simply declare people they don’t like as part of that subclass, and the accused would have no right to contest the government.

And this is something that the government likes to do. Back when it was popular to prosecute terrorists, the government charged a young man that wrote rap lyrics that it didn’t like with terrorism-related charges. Due process saved that young man, Carmen D’Ambrosio — though I swear I’ve also seen his name butchered as Carmine or Cameron, so who knows? But he’s real. It really happened. I was in my 20s when the grand jury told the prosecutors to back off.

Back when it was popular to smear people as terrorists, the government put in legal papers that Carl Malamud was a terrorist for — checks notes — publishing legal annotations to the internet.

What I’m getting at here is… if someone in the government doesn’t like you or something you’re doing…. It’s pretty easy for them to fuck with you. The only thing that keeps them in check is that you have a right to due process of law. A right so embedded in our culture, history, and Constitution that up until recently politicians dare not threaten that right out loud.

Just for a glance at how people around the world feel about having such rights taken away, President Yoon of South Korea recently attempted to declare martial law in his country. People took to the streets, there was a tank parked outside Parliament, and Parliament voted to rescind the emergency declaration. Now they’re looking at impeachment for the poor bastard.

Fans of the Suzerain game also noted that this was eerily similar to when Anton Rayne suspends the constitution to deal with internal and external threats to the fictional country of Sordland.

So both in real life and fiction we have a very serious understanding of what the actual suspension of rights — under any scenario — might mean for Americans.

To allow the suspension of due process rights of any one group, you have to assume no one in government will ever have a bone to pick with you, people like you, or people they perceive as being like you for the rest of your life and the lives of everyone you will ever care about. That’s a lot of trust in government and the people that habitually seek power.

To be honest I’m not very hopeful. People don’t seem to understand this concept that government shitheads can just shoehorn anyone into the subclass and then that person would be presumed, under the law, to have no rights. You’re a conservative? No. You’re actually an illegal immigrant with no rights. You’re a liberal? No. You’re actually an illegal immigrant with no rights. Now get in the truck, you filthy illegal, and watch all these people cheer your arrest because we told them that’s what you are.

We’re so insulated from having a government like that, that we don’t even imagine it could happen here. We laugh at the idea. Remember the Canadian family that moved to Russia? Their bank accounts were frozen on their arrival. Again, an issue that is resolvable in a country with strong due process protections.

I can only hope that reason wins the day here. The more we are willing to trade freedom for a facade of security, the more good and innocent people will suffer.

Government is trustworthy-ish because there are limits on its power under the law. Start putting in loopholes that increase its power and you’ll see the most vicious people in government start ramming those loopholes wider and wider until there’s just nothing left to protect you, me, or anyone else. That was true under Obama and the right to detain American citizens indefinitely, and it’s true today.

Know what it is to be free.

You take it for granted.

It was never granted. It was fought for.

People died for this moment.

People died so that you would have the choice to give it all away.

Give not your freedom!

To the enemies of America:

We who choose not to give away our freedom will ensure our children have the same choice!