"No Rights"

 I have been seeing comments from people who aren’t upset about ICE kidnappings and detentions because the people seized:

• Criticized Israel
• Have tattoos
• Fled homophobic persecution in their country 
• Fled gang violence in their country
• “Look like” immigrants(?) despite having been born here

These unbothered folk are unimpressed by the language of the 5th Amendment which says “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” They confidently assert that the people kidnapped by ICE have “no rights.”

You put yourself in infamous company with your “no rights” argument, something I have pointed out repeatedly. In 1857, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote in the Dred Scott decision that Black people had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” This is generally acknowledged as the single worst decision the Court has ever made. (Yes, Antonin Scalia said so, too.) It required the passage of another amendment, the 14th, to clarify that everyone born in the US is a citizen and that the states, too, must guarantee equal protection of the law to everyone within their borders.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that if other people’s rights can be taken without due process, so can yours. But apparently we still have those who cannot see themselves in others and who cannot defend the rights of others. This stops being a legal or political question. It becomes a question of humanity: Can I be a human if I cannot recognize you as a human?