Despite Congressman Cline’s professed devotion to the US Constitution (he likes to pull a copy from his pocket at public events), it seems his devotion to Donald Trump is even stronger.
These days Cline appears especially willing to ignore the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. The clause states plainly that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (Note: person, not just citizen.)
In his latest weekly newsletter, under the title Standing Up for the Rule of Law, Cline wrote:
Last week, President Trump rightly called out activist judges for blocking efforts to remove dangerous criminals from our communities. Using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the administration is prioritizing national security by deporting individuals who entered illegally under the Biden Administration’s failed border policies. I remain committed to upholding the rule of law and the will of the American people. President Trump was elected with a clear mandate to secure our borders and protect our communities, and I stand with him in fulfilling that mission.
One of those dreaded “activist judges” turns out to be a Trump appointee.
A federal judge on Thursday permanently barred the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, to deport Venezuelans it has deemed to be criminals from the Southern District of Texas, saying that the White House’s use of the statute was illegal.
The decision by the judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr., was the most expansive ruling yet by any of the numerous jurists who are currently hearing challenges to the White House’s efforts to employ the powerful but rarely invoked law as part of its wide-ranging deportation plans.
The 36-page ruling by Judge Rodriguez, a President Trump appointee, amounted to a philosophical rejection of the White House’s attempts to transpose the Alien Enemies Act, which was passed in 1798 as the nascent United States was threatened by war with France, into the context of modern-day immigration policy.
The Supreme Court has already said that any Venezuelans the White House wants to expel under Mr. Trump’s proclamation invoking the act must be given a chance to challenge their removal. But Judge Rodriguez’s ruling went further, saying that the White House had improperly stretched the meaning of the law, which is supposed to be used only against members of a hostile foreign nation in times of declared war or during a military invasion.
While Judge Rodriguez’s decision applied only to Venezuelan immigrants in the Southern District of Texas — which includes cities like Houston, Brownsville and Laredo — it could have an effect, if not a binding one, on some of the other cases involving the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.
“The court concludes that as a matter of law, the executive branch cannot rely on the A.E.A., based on the proclamation, to detain the named petitioners and the certified class, or to remove them from the country,” Judge Rodriguez wrote.
He also found that the “plain ordinary meaning” of the act’s language, like “invasion” and “predatory incursion,” referred to an attack by “military forces” and did not line up with Mr. Trump’s claims about the activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang, in a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
But it seems Cline is willing to extend his lax attitude about due process even to American citizens. He joined other Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to reject an amendment stating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cannot detain or deport US citizens.
If Cline is OK with deporting to Honduras a four-year-old US citizen with Stage 4 cancer who was sent away without medication, he needs to say so. Loud and clear.
Cline Watch 