The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Don Hoenig, Jay Davis and Trudy Miller are residents of Waldo County. They are writing on behalf of more than 390 others who signed on to this document.
We are residents of Waldo County who have been moved to act by a recent incident in which two people were turned over to the Border Patrol following a traffic stop in our county. One of them is back home but the status and location of the other is unknown to us. We have no idea if this individual was accorded due process or if he has wrongly been detained.
The Constitution guarantees each of us the right to be informed of the charges against us, the right to an attorney, and the right to present evidence in one’s own defense. These rights are guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and by the Fourteenth Amendment, which says: “ … nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
We know that the current federal administration has sent many people to prison in other countries without according them these rights. They have admitted that at least one of those people was mistakenly detained. By these actions, the federal authorities are operating outside the rule of law, which is the pillar of our democracy.
Our concern is based on the clear knowledge that due process applies to everyone in the U.S. Imagine that these rights apply only to people who are here legally and that you were taken into custody because you are believed to be undocumented. Because of the mistaken assumption that you are undocumented, you would be without the right to prove that is not the case. Because of this paradox it is often said that “if due process does not apply to everyone then it applies to no one.” Even people without legal status are covered as “any person.”
With respect to our situation in Waldo County, we commend our sheriff for his openness and transparency about the incident in Montville. However, he has left the door open to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in some as yet undefined situations. This leaves us uneasy.
The constitutional separation of powers between federal and state governments requires that cooperation between a county sheriff and immigration authorities is voluntary absent a state law or specific contract otherwise. As reported widely in Maine, the federal government is pressuring local authorities to sign such an agreement as part of ICE’s 287(g) program and at least one jurisdiction in Maine has done so.
Because the federal authorities cannot be trusted to follow due process and because we do not want our elected officials (and by extension, us) to be complicit in even one person being kidnapped or incarcerated extra-judicially, we strongly urge our sheriff to pledge to abide by the prohibitions listed in LD 1259, which is currently being considered by the Legislature. That bill is summarized as: “This bill prohibits state or local law enforcement agencies or officers from entering into contracts with federal immigration enforcement authorities.”
We know that the issue of immigration is complex and contentious. However, there are not two sides to whether or not to follow the U.S. Constitution in upholding the rule of law. Our sheriff took an oath to do just that. We believe this must be his primary concern, as this is what protects us all. Maine is known to be independent-minded and has a history of strong local control in governance. Asking our sheriff to assert his legal independence from federal lawlessness is well within our rights and traditions, and we hope he will agree.
