The videos from Minneapolis look like chaos. People blocking federal vehicles. Pepper spray. Arrests. Shouting. Broken windows.
And the reaction from here makes sense: What is wrong with these people?
We have immigration laws. We've had them for decades. The current administration ran on enforcing them, and they won. That's how elections work. You don't get to ignore the law because you don't like who's president.
If you're nodding, good. Stay with me.
Because believing in law and order means you don't get to pick when it applies.
A civics reminder. Habeas corpus. The principle that if the government detains you, it must be able to justify that detention to a court. You have the right to demand it. A judge reviews the basis. If there isn't one, you walk free.
This applies to everyone on American soil. Citizens. Legal residents. Undocumented immigrants. Everyone. The founders put it in the Constitution because they knew any government that can disappear people will eventually disappear the wrong ones.
It hasn't been suspended.
You might be thinking: fine, suspend it for illegal immigrants. Not my problem.
But consider the controversy over Red Flag laws. Gun owners rightfully worry about a system where a judge can issue an order to seize firearms based on a generic risk assessment. The owner isn't even in the room. That worry is the point.
That is exactly what's happening with immigration. People transferred across state lines before lawyers can find them. Deportations before a court date. Citizens detained for hours because they couldn't prove fast enough who they were.
If you oppose Red Flag laws because they bypass due process, the same principle applies here.
The word habeas corpus remains. The promise is fading.
The net keeps widening. First it was violent criminals. Then prior deportation orders. Then old misdemeanors. Then people grabbed at courthouses where they showed up to follow the law. According to analysis of ICE records by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, nearly three-quarters of people in detention have no criminal conviction. Among those who do, most are for minor offenses, including traffic violations. Not the worst of the worst. Just people caught in the sweep.
As I write this, a Paynesville man sits in a detention center in Texas. Valid work permit. No criminal record. Twenty-five years in this country. Picked up driving to work.
This isn't unusual. The Star Tribune has documented Minnesota detainees moved to Texas facilities so fast their attorneys aren't notified. Hearings delayed. Families unable to deliver medication. One immigration lawyer described it as chasing clients around the country.
Yes, deport the violent. Remove those who've had their day in court and lost and ran. No argument.
But situations are complex, even when we'd rather they weren't.
There's the man from Guatemala who supported the wrong politician and found himself kidnapped and tortured. The mother from Honduras who couldn't pay the gang tax and was told her children were next. They didn't come for better jobs. They came because staying meant funerals. They've been here for years now. Filing papers. Waiting for hearings. Doing it right.
There are a dozen arguments to have about immigration. Who pays what. Who gets what. Who belongs. We can have those debates another day. But none of them matter if the government can skip the part where it proves its case.
A system that treats them the same as the guy who crossed last month with a rap sheet isn't law and order. It's just order.
Lawlessness with a brick is still lawlessness. Lawlessness with a badge is still lawlessness. The Constitution doesn't care what you're holding when you violate it.
We live in black and white times. Everyone wants us to pick a side and stay there. But the world keeps being gray. Gray in the immigrants, neither all criminals nor all saints. Gray in the protesters, some praying, some breaking glass. Gray in the agents, most of whom signed up to stop terrorists and traffickers, not to detain grandfathers on their way to work.
The way through isn't to pick a tribe. It's to pick a principle and hold everyone to it.
Before judging everyone in that street, one question worth sitting with: What would make you stand in front of a federal vehicle?
Not for a stranger. For your neighbor. The one who helped pull your truck out of the ditch. The one whose kid is in your kid's class. The one you've watched live a quiet life for two decades.
What would you do if the van came for them and you knew there'd be no hearing, no judge, just a door closing and a plane taking off?
Most of us know our answer.
Rally against the brick throwers. Yes.
Rally just as hard for a Constitution that means what it says.
A heart. And a hearing.
At least a hearing.
