We’re guessing folks on Public Citizen’s email list may not watch Fox “News” regularly.

So, in case you missed it, here’s what Stephen Miller — Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and the man generally considered most responsible for the regime’s illegal and inhumane immigration “policies” — said Wednesday night (it’s a doozy):

We have federal judges telling President Trump that he can’t deport these threats from our communities? This is the choice facing every American: Either we all side, and get behind, President Trump, to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue, radical-left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus. President Trump is going to see this through to its conclusion, and we will find and remove every terrorist from this country, and President Trump will make this country safer than ever before. And he’ll do it over the fighting and opposition of the Democrat Party, over the fighting and opposition of the Communist left-wing judges, over the fighting and opposition of the far left federal bureaucracy. He will not be deterred.

There is too much nonsense in Miller’s utterly unhinged rant to pick apart word by word. But a few notes:

1. Yes, when you break the law — especially when you do so repeatedly, and flagrantly, and after being told to stop doing it again and again — you may find yourself being subjected to orders from various judges, federal and otherwise.

2. Sorry, Stephen, but many of the judges who are ruling against the patently illegal things MAGAlytes like you are doing were appointed by Ronald Reagan, George Bush, the other George Bush, and some guy named Donald Trump. Is that the “radical-left judiciary” and are those the “Communist left-wing judges” you’re talking about?

3. It should go without saying, but immigrants — even undocumented ones — are not automatically terrorists. The fact that bigots like Donald Trump and Stephen Miller seem to think otherwise pretty much reveals what they’re really all about.

Here are just a few immigrants who are not terrorists but have nonetheless been snatched off the street and put in prison for no good reason and in violation of their constitutionally guaranteed right to due process. (Yes, Stephen, anyone in this country, whether a citizen or not, whether here “illegally” or not, whether accused or even convicted of a crime or not, is entitled to due process. That’s the whole freaking point of due process.)

• Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University (New York) graduate student who had lawful permanent resident status and a green card but was nonetheless taken into custody (or, as he puts it, kidnapped) by ICE agents and ultimately locked away in a prison in Louisiana. At the time of his “arrest,” Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla — a U.S. Citizen who is a dentist — was eight months pregnant. She had the baby earlier this week. Khalil was not there because the government refused his request for a temporary release to be with his wife for the birth of their son.

• Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University (Massachusetts) Ph.D. student abducted by masked DHS agents — who didn’t even initially identify themselves — and forced into an unmarked car. Like Khalil, she has also been stashed in a prison in Louisiana.

• Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, a barbershop employee in Dallas whose family was given the runaround for 40 days before the Trump regime admitted having sent him to a torture prison in El Salvador.

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the Maryland father of three special needs children who is married to a U.S. citizen — who the Trump regime illegally rendered to the same notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador even though he had a prior court order granting him legal protection to live and work in the U.S.

We could list many more people illegally detained and deported by the Trump regime in open defiance of the law, the United States Constitution, numerous judges and the United States Supreme Court, our nation’s core ideal of due process, and basic humanity.

A country where the government can just snatch people off the street and lock them away for no good reason, never to be seen again, is not a democracy. If the Trump regime gets away with what it is doing to immigrants like these, there would be nothing to stop them from disappearing anyone they don’t like. Indeed, Trump has already and openly mused about sending American citizens to prisons in El Salvador, telling that country’s president, Nayib Bukele — who has self-identified as a “dictator” — that “homegrowns are next” and to build “about five more” prisons.

Public Citizen is calling on every member of Congress to speak out against this profound injustice and for Congress as a whole to do everything in its power — including holding emergency hearings, conducting investigations, issuing subpoenas, and withholding funding to the administration — at this defining moment for our nation.

Take action today even if you’ve taken action before. For the sake of those abducted by the Trump regime — and to preserve our very existence as a democracy — we must keep the pressure up day in and day out.

To Congress:

The Trump administration’s extrajudicial detentions and deportations are a threat to our nation’s founding ideal of due process and to our very existence as a democracy rather than a dictatorship. Every member of Congress with a conscience and a commitment to the rule of law must speak out now. And Congress as a whole must do everything in its power — including holding emergency hearings, conducting investigations, issuing subpoenas, and withholding funding to the administration — at this defining moment for our nation.

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Thanks for taking action.

For justice and democracy,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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