This is a personal opinion piece written by Tangle founder and Executive Editor Isaac Saul.
A few weeks ago, someone made a defamatory post about me on a forum of my peers.
The post accused me of “manufacturing consent for mass murder” in Gaza, being a “stenographer for the military industrial complex,” and “using fabricated sources” to write about a “non-existent” Uyghur genocide in China. I’m an ultimate frisbee player, and this person had made the post anonymously in a niche Reddit forum for ultimate players — effectively slandering me to a community of people I interact with on a daily basis in my personal life.
It didn’t matter that none of it was true (I’m a frequent critic of the military-industrial complex, have repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Israel, have never fabricated a source in my life, and believe the persecution of Uyghurs in China is very real) — the post picked up a few comments and the author got to plant a seed of doubt about me to my friends and community. In this case, I opted not to respond, the post got little traction, and it was eventually taken down for violating the rules of the forum where it was posted.
The stakes were relatively low, but it’s still a stomach-turning, infuriating experience to be accused of something you are innocent of. It would have been even worse if I didn’t have the ability to respond to said allegations. When the stakes are higher — when the consequences are, say, being deported from the country you live in, separated from your family, or sent to a maximum security prison — I imagine “nightmare” is not a sufficient description.
Of course, most of us like to imagine that we can defend ourselves from false accusations leveled against us — that the world is just and truth will prevail. In particular, if you are living in the Western world in 2025, you’d be forgiven for thinking due process is some kind of natural right, not one granted by the government.
But the chilling truth is that due-process rights don’t exist everywhere, are applied inconsistently, and even in the most democratic and free societies (like in the U.S.) can suddenly evaporate under the wrong circumstances. Indeed, the concept has been and continues to be hotly debated.
Before we turn to the present, I think it’s worth remembering why due process exists at all. Much of the foundation for our American conception of legal rights comes from the Magna Carta, an enduring 13th-century document in which King John of England pledged to act in accordance with the law and promised that his people would be given basic procedural legal rights. In the United States, the Fifth Amendment, ratified with the Bill of Rights in 1791, continues the crux of the Magna Carta’s legal provisions, declaring that “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment further assured that due-process rights applied to the state level, not just the federal. While a great deal of scholarly debate continues over the intended scope of the Fifth Amendment (and the necessity of the Fourteenth Amendment), that’s the conventional understanding of how those amendments came to be.
Over the last few weeks, debates over these amendments have left the academic realm and come to the forefront of American society. President Donald Trump, in pursuit of his promise to reduce illegal immigration to the United States, has been stretching his executive authority as far as he can. His orders target immigrants of various stripes: violent criminals here illegally, student protestors here on green cards or student visas, and legal immigrants with no criminal record or any apparent cause for deportation.
Consider a sampling of the cases that have sparked recent debate. First is Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student here on a green card who was arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for alleged pro-Hamas activity; weeks later, he’s still sitting in a Louisiana detention center 1,400 miles from his wife, and no charges have been brought against him. Possibly in the same facility (although, eerily, we don’t know for sure) is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar arrested in Somerville, Massachusetts, by six masked ICE agents for allegedly acting “in support of Hamas.” The action prompting her arrest was an op-ed she coauthored for her college newspaper that, at its most brazen, called for U.S. divestment from Israel.
The cases don’t get stronger from there. Iranian doctoral student Alireza Doroudi was rounded up under the guise of national security, but the government has not produced any evidence that he’s ever participated in a protest. Eduardo Núñez González is a business owner with a clean record, here on a legal work permit, and married to a U.S. citizen — he was arrested while taking out the trash. Baker Neri Alvarado was sent to an El Salvador prison, and the probable cause for his deportation was his tattoos, one of which is an autism awareness ribbon in honor of his 15-year-old brother.
Perhaps most notable of all is Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
