No Criminal Record? That Must Mean You're a Criminal!
Actually, it probably means you're a terrorist. I'm not saying this — the government is.
Yesterday, I read the declaration filed in federal court by an Acting Field Office Director for ICE, Robert L. Cerna, and it made my blood boil. So I’m really glad that
was also outraged by the Orwellian circular reasoning this man actually had the gall to put into in a sworn statement.On the one hand, Cerna declares that the government knows the Venezuelans they sent off to a Salvadoran gulag in the dark of night — and in defiance of a court order — were members of a danger criminal gang because “[a]gency personnel carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of [Tren de Aragua]” and found “court records” and “surveillance” and “law enforcement encounters” and “evidence” and even “admissions” by the individuals that they were members of TdA.
But oops! Many of the TdA members who were deported do not have criminal records! So why were they deported? Well, “[t]he lack of criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
So the government can deport people who it asserts are terrorists based on supposedly detailed investigation into their backgrounds. But the government can also deport people about whom it knows little or nothing, because that means they are terrorists?!?
As HCR writes,
“[This paragraph] asserts to the court that a person’s lack of criminal record proves that they are more dangerous than people who do have a criminal record because their clean record simply shows that the government lacks a complete profile of their crimes.” … [It also means that] “a government official can argue that the lack of a criminal record for someone perceived to be an enemy of those in power just proves that person is a criminal.”
I’m repeating all of this (though of course HCR does a much more comprehensive job of writing about this latest outrage) because it bears repeating. The government can say that your lack of a criminal record just proves that you must really be a criminal.
It boggles the mind that we have gotten to this point.
First they came for the immigrants….