{"id":41030,"date":"2025-05-01T20:41:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=41030"},"modified":"2025-05-01T20:41:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:41:51","slug":"john-quincy-adams-warned-us-strip-due-process-from-one-and-you-threaten-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/john-quincy-adams-warned-us-strip-due-process-from-one-and-you-threaten-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WARNED US: STRIP DUE PROCESS FROM ONE, AND YOU THREATEN US ALL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mahmoud Khalil isn\u2019t a criminal. He\u2019s a student, a resident, and a protester. In 1841, Adams stood for people like him. In 2025, Trump locks them away\u2026<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Thom<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>THOM HARTMANN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

APR 30, 2025 (HartmannReport.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Louise\u2019s Daily Song: No Due Process, No Democracy<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a cold, gray morning in Oklahoma when the government came crashing through the wrong door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without warning, ICE agents clad in black tactical gear burst into a quiet family home. Guns drawn, boots pounding on hardwood, they moved like soldiers in hostile territory \u2014 except this wasn\u2019t a war zone. It was a suburban neighborhood. A home where children did homework, parents made dinner, and everyone believed, until that moment, that living in America meant having rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the chaos, the teenage daughter \u2014 still in her underwear \u2014 was yanked from her bedroom and forced to stand, exposed and terrified, while armed strangers rifled through her belongings. Her screams went unanswered. The agents refused to let her or the rest of the family get dressed. They didn\u2019t explain why they were there, didn\u2019t ask questions, didn\u2019t seem to care that the person they were looking for didn\u2019t live at that address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they started taking things: cell phones, tablets, laptops \u2014 anything that might contain information or, perhaps more to the point, value. They seized all the family\u2019s cash, their passports, their children\u2019s devices. When the family demanded answers, they were met with silence and threats. No warrant was ever shown. No charges were filed. No receipts left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ICE simply vanished, leaving the family humiliated, traumatized, and stripped of the basic tools of modern life. The agency has since refused to return the electronics or the money. There has been no apology, no accountability, no restitution \u2014 just a void where justice is supposed to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened to that family wasn\u2019t an accident. It was a symptom \u2014 a glimpse behind the curtain of what the Trump administration has built: an unaccountable, increasingly lawless deportation regime that functions more like a secret police force than a branch of a democratic government.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the targets aren\u2019t just undocumented immigrants or criminal suspects anymore. They\u2019re legal residents. College students. People born and raised in this country. Their only \u201ccrime\u201d is voicing dissent, having the wrong skin color, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some are pushing back, bringing us big news<\/a> from the ACLU yesterday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled today that Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent Columbia graduate student, can move forward with his lawsuit claiming the government is unlawfully detaining him for his political views. The court rejected the government\u2019s attempt to shut down Mr. Khalil\u2019s case before it could be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Khalil has committed no crime. He was in the U.S. legally. His only offense \u2014 in the eyes of the Trump administration \u2014 was participating in peaceful protests criticizing Israeli policy in Gaza. For that, ICE agents stormed his university housing and locked him in a detention facility, citing a vague national security justification that amounts to little more than \u201cwe don\u2019t like what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not how a constitutional republic behaves. It is how authoritarian regimes operate: by making examples out of those who speak up, and terrifying the rest into silence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand how dangerous this moment is \u2014 how far we\u2019ve drifted from our foundational values \u2014 we have to reach back nearly two centuries. Because this is not the first time American leaders have had to grapple with whether the protections of our laws apply to those without political power, to people who aren\u2019t citizens but are still human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 1841, 73-year-old former President John Quincy Adams stood before the Supreme Court to defend 53 African men who had been kidnapped from Sierra Leone, sold into slavery, and transported aboard the Spanish slave ship La Amistad<\/em>. These men, having seized the ship and attempted to return home, were captured off the coast of Long Island and jailed as property, their fates debated not as individuals but as commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adams \u2014 the son of a founding father and one of the last living links to the American Revolution \u2014 didn\u2019t argue their case as a matter of political favor or foreign diplomacy. He invoked something deeper: the principle that all<\/em> people, regardless of citizenship, nationality, or status, are entitled to the protection of the law when they are on American soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBy what right was it denied to the men who had restored themselves to freedom,\u201d Adams thundered, \u201cand why was it extended to the perpetrators of those acts of violence themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He insisted that justice must be blind to nationality or legal status; that due process, as encoded in the Constitution, must apply to persons<\/em>, not just citizens. If the government could arbitrarily decide who deserved rights and who didn\u2019t, then no rights were truly secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a radical argument for the time, but the Supreme Court agreed. Adams won. And in doing so, he helped define a cornerstone of American jurisprudence: that the rule of law exists to constrain the state, not to be selectively applied at the whim of those in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to 2025, and that principle is now under direct assault.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration, enabled by allies in Congress and the judiciary, has weaponized immigration law and executive authority in ways that Adams would have recognized and condemned. They are now detaining legal permanent residents, like Mahmoud Khalil, not for crimes, but for speech. They are targeting foreign students and legal residents \u2014 often young people of color \u2014 for deportation based on political views, often under the thinnest pretexts of \u201cnational security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The administration\u2019s justification in Khalil\u2019s case? That his presence in the U.S. could cause \u201cpotentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.\u201d That\u2019s the legal equivalent of saying, \u201cWe\u2019re deporting him because we want to.\u201d It\u2019s not just unconstitutional: it\u2019s tyrannical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this isn\u2019t isolated. Turkish graduate student Rumeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk was grabbed off the street by masked agents for writing an op-ed critical of Israeli policy in a student newspaper over a year ago. In both cases, there were no warrants, no hearings, no evidence of criminal activity. Just black-bag operations targeting people for using their First Amendment rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, pro-Netanyahu political groups \u2014 many with direct ties to Trumpworld \u2014 are openly compiling<\/a> lists of student activists and professors to target for deportation. And the administration appears to be acting on those lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Quincy Adams would be horrified, but not surprised.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because once the government claims the right to strip anyone of due process, rights cease to be rights and become privileges, granted or revoked at the whim of those in power. That is not a constitutional democracy. That is the scaffolding of fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sure enough, what began with undocumented immigrants is now creeping toward legal residents, foreign students, and even American citizens. The Trump administration recently floated the idea \u2014 with a straight face \u2014 of deporting certain American<\/em> citizens<\/em> to El Salvador.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let that sink in.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very notion should be constitutionally absurd. But like so many authoritarian moves, it\u2019s being normalized through repetition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First they came for the undocumented. Then they came for the legal immigrants. Then the student visa holders. Now, they\u2019re signaling plans to come after naturalized citizens \u2014 and even people born here \u2014 if they hold the \u201cwrong\u201d political beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s January executive order made this shift brutally clear:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cTo all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you\u2026 I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But who gets to decide what constitutes a \u201cpro-jihadist protest\u201d or who counts as a \u201cHamas sympathizer\u201d? The Trump administration does. No court. No jury. No evidence required. Just guilt by association \u2014 and punishment without due process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is precisely how autocrats consolidate power: they redefine dissent as treason, criminalize speech, and strip away rights piecemeal until there\u2019s nothing left to defend. It happened in Turkey under Erdo\u011fan. It happened in Hungary under Orb\u00e1n. It happened in Putin\u2019s Russia. And now it\u2019s happening here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The echoes of the Amistad case are unmistakable. Back then, the federal government sought to hand kidnapped Africans over to foreign governments to appease diplomatic partners. Today, we are handing peaceful student protesters over to ICE and DHS to appease political donors and right-wing pressure groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same disregard for humanity. The same corruption of justice. The same weaponization of government to serve ideology instead of law.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just as Adams turned the tide in 1841 by reminding America of its founding principles, we must do the same today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this isn\u2019t about immigration policy. It\u2019s not about border security. It\u2019s about the foundational principle that all people \u2014 all people<\/em> \u2014 have the right to due process, the right to protest, and the right to be free from government persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That family in Oklahoma, whose lives were shattered by an ICE raid on the wrong house? They weren\u2019t caught in the gears of bureaucracy. They were deliberately crushed by a system designed to instill fear, to dehumanize, and to render justice optional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk are not threats to national security; they\u2019re reminders of what democracy is supposed to look like: people using their voices to speak uncomfortable truths. That\u2019s what authoritarians fear most.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if we let this continue \u2014 if we fail to act \u2014 we are complicit in the unraveling of the very idea of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must fight this on every front:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First<\/strong>, we need immediate legal challenges to every deportation that lacks due process. Constitutional rights don\u2019t depend on citizenship: they apply to every person on American soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second<\/strong>, we need massive public protest against these policies. Universities should, within the law, refuse to cooperate with ICE and protect their students. Communities should establish sanctuary policies. Legal organizations should provide pro bono representation to those targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally<\/strong>, we need to reclaim the narrative. This isn\u2019t about immigration policy or national security; it\u2019s about the most fundamental American principle: that all people possess inalienable rights, even those who aren\u2019t citizens or are accused of a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Quincy Adams knew in 1841 what we must remember today: a government that can deny due process to anyone can eventually deny it to everyone. The rule of law either protects us all, or it ultimately protects none of us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time for action is now. Contact your representatives. Support legal defense funds. Share this story. Join the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if we don\u2019t stand up for them today, there may be no one left to stand up for us tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahmoud Khalil isn\u2019t a criminal. He\u2019s a student, a resident, and a protester. In 1841, Adams stood for people like him. In 2025, Trump locks them away\u2026 THOM HARTMANN APR 30, 2025 (HartmannReport.com) Louise\u2019s Daily Song: No Due Process, No Democracy It was a cold, gray morning in Oklahoma when… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41031,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41030\/revisions\/41031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}