ROGER KIMBALL: Mass Hearings and Due Process by Zoom: A Modest Judicial Proposal.
More than 11 million people crossed into this country under Joe Biden’s watch. Will each individual require his own legal process before being eligible for deportation? Going through the motions of that process would take decades, if not, as some have argued, centuries.
To forestall that unhelpful eventuality, I would like to suggest an expedient to the various courts. I got the idea from the mass weddings presided over by Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church. The enterprising and entrepreneurial clergyman would preside over 5,000, 10,000, or even 20,000 happy couples at a time. Thus, large batches of new church members would be minted in a single go.
Could not the American judiciary take a page from the book of Reverend Moon and conduct, not mass weddings, but mass hearings to confer the golden halo of due process upon thousands of potential deportees at a time? Especially after our experience with COVID, when just about every human action was virtual or by proxy, why can we not hold hearings by proxy to determine the immigration and deportation status of likely candidates? Even at 20,000 per session, it would be a tedious process, but how much more efficient than taking each miscreant individually? I offer the idea free and for nothing as my contribution to salvaging the reputation of the judiciary, recently so tainted by its inveterate anti-Trump bias.
I have one other idea I’d like to offer for reform. There has been a flurry of additional opinions, orders, and such like in the aftermath of Judge Xinis’s demand that the government take steps to “facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.” Even the Supreme Court has weighed in on the issue. The due date on Judge Xinis’s original demand has come and gone. Garcia is still in El Salvador, apparently enjoying drinks with U.S. senators worried about his spirits and safety.
Speaking of whom: LOL! Her Face! Sen. Chris Van Hollen Botches Softball Question About Abrego-Garcia from Dana Bash (Watch).