CAL THOMAS

President Trump is using an 18th-century law — the Alien Enemies Act — to justify the deportation of hundreds of people he says are members of a vicious Venezuelan gang. That law was last used during World War II by the Roosevelt administration to justify the internment of Japanese Americans. The government later apologized for that action and paid reparations to the survivors who were detained, but not until 1988 in the last year of the Reagan administration.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ordered a halt to deportations until a hearing could be held. The administration said the planes deporting Venezuelans were already in the air and over international waters last Saturday before the judge’s order. President Trump has called for the impeachment of Boasberg, an appointee of President Obama.

One can agree that these Venezuelans are “very bad people” while still defending their right to due process, a concept at least as old as the Magna Carta.

In a summation of the Magna Carta’s influence on modern law, a posting on the Library of Congress site says: “The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee that no person shall ‘be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ incorporated the model of the rule of law that English and American lawyers associated most closely with Magna Carta for centuries. Under this model, strict adherence to regular procedure was the most important safeguard against tyranny.”

There was at least one option other than paying $6 million to El Salvador to take the Venezuelans and imprison them. It’s what the administration initially planned — send suspected criminals to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await a hearing before an immigration judge. Hundreds of tents were erected for the prospective deportees. The administration apparently preferred a faster strategy, perhaps to demonstrate how tough it could be when following through on Trump’s campaign and subsequent promises to rid the country of undocumented aliens and “known criminals.”

That approach has likely contributed to Trump’s record-high poll numbers, but at what cost?

If the Venezuelans had been sent to Guantanamo and each one appeared before an immigration judge, the chances would have been excellent they would end up being deported. That would uphold constitutional law and produce the same results as the administration desires.

Think of it this way: If you were charged with a crime, would you want the government bypassing a jury trial to satisfy a government or political objective? This is the way totalitarian regimes behave. It should not be a policy of the United States. No president should be allowed to unilaterally remove constitutional rights from anyone, including those who may have broken the law to get to this country.

Founding Father George Mason said: “… No free government, nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved, to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.”

Either due process is for everybody, or it is for nobody.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.