Today, State Senator Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, a professor of constitutional law, released a statement in response to the Supreme Court decision that allows the deportation of undocumented immigrants to third-party countries. Senator Gadkar-Wilcox argues that sending individuals to countries outside of country their origin, where they don’t speak the language, understand the culture, or share the same religion, and where they may face harm and violence, violates our most fundamental constitutional right to due process.
“The Supreme Court’s recent ruling allows the Trump administration to deport individuals to countries that are not their country of origin, including conflict zones and countries where they could face persecution – all without due process. Not only is this unconscionable, but it goes well beyond the pale of settled law.”
“We have already seen this administration send individuals to a prison in El Salvador known for human rights violations without so much as a charge. We have seen masked officers abduct a student off the street for exercising free speech. We have seen Donald Trump defy court orders that he does not agree with. We are witnessing an attack on our constitution unfold before our eyes.”
“In 1944, the Korematsu v. U.S. case legitimized the sending of more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese origin to internment camps. When we reflect on that case today, history shows us that Supreme Court cases that blatantly violate basic human rights will ultimately be remembered as a stain on the constitutional order of the United States. This administration and the Supreme Court would do well to look towards history and learn from our most shameful moments, not repeat them.”
Background
One of the central purposes of due process is to ensure that people are not detained without a meaningful opportunity to be heard or deported to places where they would face violence and persecution. The due process right that the court undermines with this decision is so fundamental to our system of laws that it goes all the way back to the Magna Carta (1215): “No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.”
The habeas corpus right in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, maintains that anyone who is detained has the right to be heard by a neutral arbiter.
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says “no person, shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The Fourteenth Amendment adds that “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
The court has held the line on due process in Boumediene v. Bush (2007) and JGG v. Trump (2025). In the former, which applied to detentions of non-US citizens after 9/11, and in the latter, in which the Supreme Court prohibited the Trump Administration from implementing the Alien Enemies Act to send deportees to El Salvador before providing due process to the accused, the court upheld due process. It should have provided that same due process here. This is the minimal constitutional requirement and a fundamental moral obligation.
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