Tag: due process

Why I Am Speaking Out Now

Why I have not spoken out like this before

kevingdrendel2 Comments

People ask me why I didn’t speak out negatively against the Biden Administration. It’s true, I didn’t speak out (as much) against the Biden administration as I do now against the Trump administration.

To be clear, I did not vote for Joe Biden. I also did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. I am a lifelong conservative and I have voted Republican most of the time throughout most of my life, with few exceptions, mostly on a local level.

I would be classified as a compassionate conservative. On some scales, I come out as a “classic liberal.” I believe in the freedom of speech, individual rights, and basic constitutional protections for all people, but I am not a Democrat, and I never have been.

As a conservative, and as a human being, I have some of the same concerns that Democrats do. We just approach things differently. For the most part, I am not confident in large government. I have seen too much bureaucracy, waste, and abuse in state governments and large municipalities to have much confidence in large government.

At the same time, I recognize weaknesses in my conservative position that have become accentuated over the years. For instance, large business is not any better than large government, and could be even worse.

A problem for the political system as a whole is the amount of money that pours into the political process. It has grown exponentially over my lifetime. Money begets greed, self-interest, and corruption in ways that are not healthy for our politics.

The amount of money accessible to politicians has a strong negative effect on our political system. If you look at the data of the wealth of politicians when they begin as “public servants” and retire, the amount of wealth that politicians accumulate is staggering and indicative of a major problem in American politics. I believe that the love of money is the root of all evil, as the Bible says, and the amount of money in the political system is a corrupting influence.

But , I digress. None of that explains why I have spoken out more over the last year against the Trump administration than I did against the Biden administration. I thought the Biden administration was inept. It seemed clear that Biden was being propped up and pushed forward, but he was not controlling what was going on. The disparate interest groups in the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole that push extreme agendas that much of the country is uncomfortable with were problematic. But political processes still operated. There was a strong Republican Party, albeit with its own issues.

I did speak out about the fact that Congress has become a lame duck branch of government. Over many years, beginning at least with the Clinton administration going forward, presidents have wielded more and more executive power, issuing executive orders to make sweeping changes that were never intended to be part of the power of the executive branch.

I believe one reason for that is that Congress is often unable to reach a consensus that will pass both houses of Congress. We are more polarized now than we were 50 years ago. There is no middle ground. Politicians in the middle get taken out by their own party. So we have no consensus-building block that is essential to allow Congress to adopt laws and overhaul laws like our immigration law when needed. Therefore, presidents rule by the stroke of a pen with an executive order, and that has become the norm. I have been talking about that for many years.

What we are seeing now is the fallout of those many years of allowing Congress to languish in passivity while we became accustomed to presidents creating law with the stroke of a pen. Executive orders were never intended to be the way our system operates, but it is the present reality. The Trump administration is the natural result of that failure.

Donald Trump is taking the momentum of decades of American political processes and stretching them to their inevitable conclusions, which is a king-like authority in the executive branch, where the president can do just about whatever the president wants to do with impunity, including ignoring legal precedent and law and becoming a law unto himself.

Speaking of legal precedent, our Supreme Court process, our process for appointing Supreme Court justices and lower court justices has become more and more political over the years. Things took a turn for the worse with the Bork confirmation hearings, which was an absolute political circus. I have been speaking out against that for years, because it undermines the integrity of the judicial branch of government. It was never meant to be hyper-politicized. Justices were meant to be appointed because of their judicial reputation and acumen. Judges were not meant to be political hacks or political puppets. They were meant to be truly independent, the best and the brightest.

Of course, human nature being what it is, conservative presidents would tend to appoint conservative justices, and liberal presidents would tend to appoint liberal justices. But the history of American jurisprudence shows that merit, judicial acumen, and proven judicial ability were at the top of the list of qualifications. That is no longer the case. Presidents and parties make no bones about who they want as their judicial candidates. They want people who are going to decide cases according to the party line, and that is coming home to roost now also.

Donald Trump thinks that he can tell justices how to rule and how to apply the law, or, in some cases, how to ignore the law. Donald Trump just fired hundreds of immigration judges so that he can replace them with immigration judges who will rule exactly as he wants them to.

That is not how the executive branch and judicial branch should be interacting with each other. The judicial branch is specifically meant to be a foil to the executive branch. The judicial branch is meant to stand independently so that it can be a check and balance on the other branches of government.

What we are seeing today is the complete erosion of this check and balance system that was established in our Constitution. It is completely breaking down and devolving into supreme authority in the executive branch.

I don’t blame Donald Trump for the erosion of the check and balance system in our government. It’s been happening for a long time.

I do blame him for being an opportunistic extremist. He is an opportunist who sees the reality, and he has no qualms about exploiting and taking advantage of it. He is a bad actor, in my opinion, who is driving a proverbial truck through a gaping hole in our system.

When I speak out, I am not just speaking out against the Trump administration. I am speaking out as a warning signal about where we are in the history of our country.

We are at a tipping point. Our system is caving in and collapsing. I am afraid it’s already too late, and part of the problem is that we are so focused on our partisan politics, so willing to excuse and defend our own party and our own party line that we cannot see the collapse of our system of government as it is happening in front of our eyes. 

Perhaps, more personally, I have been a lifelong conservative because I thought the Republican Party would protect the rule of law and the integrity of the Constitution. I thought the Republicans would conserve the basic freedoms we have and hold us back from a progressive erosion of the foundational components of Constitution and law.

What alarms me most about the Trump Administration is that he has taken it the other direction and is knocking down whole walls and structural elements of our Constitution to impose his will on the country. He is intentionally pushing every boundary in the direction of expansive executive power, and the Republican party won’t stand up to him.

The Trump Administration is running rough shod over due process protections, ignoring the First Amendment, and actively attempting to reinterpret and rewrite the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, among other things. These are staple protections of our freedom. Trump is undoing fundamental protections at breakneck speed and overwhelming the court system, and I see an immediate threat to the seams of our democracy that are ready to burst and break open. These actions betray every conservative nerve in my body, and that is why I am speaking out now.

Where are the conservative stalwarts standing up to him? Most conservatives are cheering or at least looking the other way as Trump and his motely crew of hacks dismantle the fabric of our law.

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So, stepping down from my soapbox, let me know where I am coming unhinged. Give me some hope. Disagree me if you see it differently. I am not unable to listen to contrary voices, and (in fact) need some fresh perspective at times to balance me out. Thank you ahead of time.

What Is Due Process, and Why Does It Matter for Christians?

Any first year law student knows the importance of due process as the basic structure of American law

kevingdrendel3 Comments

The news waves are buzzing with reports of summary deportations with a mixed reaction of angst and anger on the on hand and zeal on the other hand. Social media is overtaken by the reports and the opposite reactions in a vortex of swirling vitriol.

I am as guilty as the next person of the desire to post knee-jerk reactions, I realize we need cooler heads to prevail if we are going to find a positive way forward as a nation.

The same swirling vortex of reaction is evident in the Church, even in the evangelical church, which is my “tribe”, and the same need for cooler heads to prevail exists. We also need biblical grounding and direction if we are going to maintain any sense of unity in Christ.

The latest news involves the visit to the White of El Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele. The staged meeting of the two presidents comes in the wake of the mass deportation on March 15, 2025, of hundreds of men to a notorious Salvadoran prison known for its harsh and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The deportations happened so fast that an emergency motion filed in court and an emergency order blocking the deportation came too late as the plane rushed off the runway just as the order was handed down. The White House maintained that every one of the several hundred men were violent criminals, though about half of them had no criminal records, and none of them received even a cursory hearing.

On April 10, 2025, the matter made its way up to the US Supreme Court in lightning fast fashion (for the court system), and the Court weighed in. (See Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, et al.) The appeal was prosecuted by the government to overturn the trial court injunction to block the deportation.

Homeland Security insisted to the trial judge that the plane had already left the runway when the order was issued. According to the Supreme Court, however, “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” suggesting that the order was in place before the plane took off.

The court found further that “[t]he United States represents that the removal to El Salvador was the result of an ‘administrative error.’” Thus, Homeland Security admits they made a mistake in deporting him. One of the reasons for “due process, which I will get into, is to avoid such mistakes.

Nevertheless, Homeland Security justifies the action taken by claiming that Abrego Garcia “has been found to be a member of the gang MS–13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that his return to the United States would pose a threat to the public.” They maintain they have done nothing wrong.

The subject of this post is due process, so I will ignore some of the other elements of this case, such as the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, the fact that the decision was 9-0, and Donald Trump’s insistence this was a victory for him (perhaps because he got away with it with no repercussions – yet).

While the Supreme Court remanded the matter back to the trial court for clarification, the Court did weigh in on the substance of the issues in various ways. The Supreme Court said:

  • “The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
  • “To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it.”
  • The government is bound by a 2019 order effectively granting Abrego Garcia legal refugee status in the United States.
  • “Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an ‘oversight.’”
  • The government’s request to be able to allow them to leave Abrego Garcia in El Salvador is based on “no reason recognized by the law.”
  • “The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.”
  • “[T]he Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”
  • “Federal law governing detention and removal of immigrants continues, of course, to be binding as well. See 8 U. S. C. §1226(a) (requiring a warrant before a noncitizen ‘may be arrested and detained pending a decision” on removal)….”
  • “In the proceedings on remand, the District Court should continue to ensure that the Government lives up to its obligations to follow the law.”

These are direct quotes from the Supreme Court ruling. As you should be able to discern easily, this is not a victory for the Trump Administration, and it is not a vindication of what they have done (and continue to do) in detaining, arresting, imprisoning and deporting people without due process.

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