To the Journal editor:

The erroneous deportation of Kilmar Garcia should strike fear in the heart of every one of us.

The U.S. Department of Justice admitted, in court, that ICE knew there was a 2019 court order prohibiting Garcia’s deportation. Yet, without due process and the opportunity to prove his innocence and his right to be in this country, the U.S. government sent Garcia to a gulag in El Salvador from which he is not likely to ever emerge.

Then, in a “Catch-22” defense, the government argued that, because Garcia was in El Salvador, he was now beyond the reach of the United States and nothing more could be done.

The Trump administration argues that the people sent to El Salvador are not entitled to due process because they are all, in one way or another, criminals.

The government equates the defense of Constitutional rights with a defense of the offenses of which people are accused. It’s a false argument.

Many of our most important Constitutional rights have been secured in cases involving unsavory people. Miranda v. Arizona — an appeal by a man who’d been convicted of robbery, kidnapping, and rape of a young woman — established that a person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that his statements can be used as evidence against him, and that he has the right to the presence of an attorney before he can be questioned.

That right protects the innocent as well as the guilty from law enforcement overreach.

In the landmark case of National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie — an appeal by a neo-Nazi party that was denied the right to hold a white-power demonstration in a community with a large Jewish population — the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the display of a swastika is a symbolic form of speech protected by the First Amendment and could not be prohibited.

The court protected vile speech by Neo-Nazis in order that speech by all of us is protected.

Without Miranda rights for Miranda, there are no Miranda rights for any of us. Without free speech rights for Neo-Nazis, there is no free speech for any of us.

And when we argue — wrongfully — that immigrants are not entitled to due process, we risk the loss of due process for all of us.