88 PART oNE • THE AMERiCAN sYsTEM
The Fourteenth Amendment specifies that all persons (as opposed to all citizens) shall
enjoy “due process of law.”
Illegal immigrants are subject to deportation. In 1903, however, the Supreme Court
ruled that the government could not deport someone without a hearing that meets con-
stitutional due process standards.^53 Today, most people facing deportation are entitled to
a hearing before an immigration judge, to representation by a lawyer, and to the right to
see the evidence presented against them. The government must prove that its grounds for
deportation are valid.Limits to the Rights of deportees: due Process. Despite the language of the
Fourteenth Amendment, the courts have often deferred to government assertions that
noncitizens cannot make constitutional claims. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act passed by Congress in 1996 was especially restrictive. The government was
given the right to deport noncitizens for alleged terrorism without any court review of the
deportation order. Further, the government is now allowed to deport noncitizens based on
secret evidence that the deportee is not permitted to see.Limits to the Rights of deportees: Freedom of speech. A case in 1999 involved
a group of noncitizens associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP). The PFLP had carried out terrorist acts in Israel, but there was no evidence of crimi-
nal conduct by the group arrested in the United States. In this case, the Supreme Court
ruled that aliens have no First Amendment rights to object to deportation, even if the
deportation is based on their political associations.^54 This ruling also covers permanent
residents—noncitizens with “green cards” that allow them to live and work in the United
States on a long-term basis.Limits to the Rights of deportees: Ex Post Facto Laws. Article I, Section 9, of the
Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws—laws that inflict punishments for acts that were
not illegal when they were committed. This provision may not apply in deportation cases,
however. The 1996 law mentioned earlier provided mandatory deportation for noncitizens
convicted of an aggravated felony, even if the crime took place before 1996. Under the
1996 law, permanent residents have been deported to nations that they left when they
were small children. In some cases, deported persons did not even speak the language of
the country to which they were deported.- Yamataya v. Fisher, 189 U.S. 86 (1903).
- Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 525 U.S. 471 (1999).
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