When rights are taken from one, they are taken from all
By Rhonda Peters and Vilia Johnson
From the July-September 2025 issue of Critical Times. Print versions are available for free at WSLR+Fogartyville and other community gathering spaces in Sarasota and Manatee counties.
The founders of our nation included in the Constitution the command that “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
“Uphold our constitution and the rule of law.”
In the past 236 years, Americans of all political beliefs have rightly expressed pride in our Constitution. All have agreed that the government cannot just invade people’s homes without a warrant, or arrest and imprison people without recourse to judicial oversight. That appeared to be universal, conventional wisdom among all Americans, at least until the past several months.
We have witnessed individuals forcibly removed from their homes, schools and places of employment by armed law enforcement personnel and imprisoned, sometimes in a foreign country. One of the most stunning examples was the seizing and incarceration of a Maryland husband and father, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia was flown to a prison in El Salvador without any judicial process at all. Making it even more egregious, the Trump administration acknowledged this man was removed from the country in error.
Nevertheless, it argued there was nothing it could do because he was under El Salvadorian control—notwithstanding that our country put him there and was paying for his incarceration. Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. on June 6 and will answer charges in court (as of this writing). The return demonstrates the administration’s ability, but refusal to do so earlier.
Numerous judges have found these actions violate due process. Most importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that all persons who are detained “are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”
The issue has been best summarized by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III (nominated to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Ronald Reagan) when he wrote in the Abrego Garcia case: “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody, that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
As Americans, we should all join Judge Wilkinson in his shock. We must not stand idly by, thinking these transgressions do not affect us. What happened in Maryland can happen here, on Sarasota’s streets, in our businesses, or in our schools. When rights are taken from one, they are taken from all.
We must all take action now to preserve our rights. Speak up in whatever way you are able: write or call your elected officials, attend governmental meetings, or join events where these issues are discussed. Now is not the time for silent acquiescence.
Rhonda Peters and Vilia Johnson are co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Sarasota County. Learn what the League of Women Voters is doing to speak out against the present “constitutional crisis.”