This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It's not clear that it would matter where an individual seeking habeas specifically is at the point of a court order. The order is directed against US government officials, at least insofar as they have custody of the individual (e.g. they haven't been turned over to someone else) at the point in time when the order was made.
I do expect that the courts will accommodate the deportations and set up some minimal due process at least for the individuals to make any claims of US citizenship or other status that would entitle them to stay. That seems like a very basic process that could happen fast enough to satisfy the administration's needs while also muting some of the more crazy claims (made without evidence) that even US citizens are being swept up and deported.
It all seems like a very shallow dispute. I'm sure the Supreme Court would not throw up any major hurdle while also abiding recent precedent that lets the DCs fashion appropriate review (ala Boumediene & Padilla) short of a full-scale (and slow) trial.
The core dispute here - is a determination by the President that an "invasion" exists under the Enemy Aliens Act justiciable - is not shallow. It is as fundamental as constitutional disputes get. Either legal immigrants enjoy the rights that the Constitution grants to "persons" (as opposed to "citizens of the United States") or they do not. And if the administration's interpretation of the Enemy Aliens Act is correct, then they don't - because the President has the right to grab any non-citizen they want and ship them off to a foreign prison without meaningful judicial review.
Ignoring the merits for a moment (and you shouldn't - it is probably the most important constitutional case since the War on Terror), the procedural issues are not shallow. The problem of cases of national significance being heard by forum-shopped district court judges has been getting worse for a long time and has hurt both sides (nothing being done to Trump is fundamentally different from what Judge Kacsmaryk did to Biden), and probably requires Congressional action to fix - a process for enjoining facially illegal executive policies is necessary, and right now that process is to file suit in any district court with jurisdiction. If district courts just stop hearing this type of case then there are a whole load of illegal or unconstitutional policies that can't be litigated. (Including, among others, the Biden student loan scheme - these issues are profoundly bipartisan). And the procedural moves taken by the administration are utterly outrageous to the point where a private litigant who tried it would go to jail without passing Go - the administration moved the subject matter of litigation out of the jurisdiction while the hearing was going on in the courtroom and the government lawyer claimed not to know what was going on.
So the issues we have at stake are:
Also to be clear, the answer is in the affirmative. They have all the rights there in the Constitution.
But they don't have a right to stay in the US, except as delineated in 8USC (various, it's early I don't feel like collecting all the cites) explaining where the Executive (usually the AG) administers the legal immigration system.
If the government can round you up in the middle of the night and ship you off to a foreign prison before a court has a chance to hear your case, you do not, in fact, have any of those rights. The arrangement between the US and El Salvador isn't functionally a deportation - it is a prisoner transfer. The 4th and 5th amendments are fairly obviously implicated. Conditions in Salvadorean jails are bad enough that the 8th amendment is being violated if prisoners are held there on behalf of the US (as Bukele has claimed). Bukele has also said that he wants to cover most of the costs of running the prisons with forced labour, which is a 13th amendment violation as applied to people who haven't been convicted of a crime.
Munaf v Geren directly forecloses those constitutional claims as it pertains to the actions of other governments even with respect to US citizens.
It does not appear to go that far; the case is about US citizens who voluntarily traveled to Iraq and committed crimes there. This is easily distinguishable from those sent involuntarily by the US to El Salvador.
But the principle is that the US is not responsible for the treatment of detainees by forces outside our control.
More options
Context Copy link
In addition, the government of El Salvador appears to be acting as an agent of the US here - if Bukele's public statements are correct then the US is paying an annual fee per prisoner in the same way that they would contract with a domestic private prison operator. That is a very different situation to Munaf v Geren which involved the US handing people over to an Iraqi court for trial under Iraqi law for crimes committed in Iraq. El Salvador isn't exercising its own jurisdiction here - its interest in the detainees is the cash they are getting from the US.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link