Guilty Until Proven Innocent: A New American Legal Standard

“Say her name!” Many are familiar with Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s outburst at former President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union. Few are familiar with the details behind this exclamation. Laken Riley was a twenty-two-year-old nursing student at Augusta University College of Nursing when she was killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra on February 24th, 2022. Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant, was found guilty of Riley’s murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In the short while after her death, Laken Riley’s name became a rallying cry for drastic immigration reforms from conservative Congress members and President Donald Trump, who, at the time, was campaigning for his re-election. These reforms came to fruition when President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law on January 29th, 2025–his first piece of legislation since his inauguration on January 20th. The act requires the mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants who are accused or arrested of committing a crime of burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting without the possibility of bail or provision for release even if charges are dropped. [1] It also “authorizes states to sue the federal government for decisions or alleged failures related to immigration enforcement,” endowing standing for states to challenge federal policy and enforcement of immigration policy within their borders. [2] While there is precedent to support strong federal oversight of immigration policy, the Laken Riley Act and the likely decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in its favor, as they did in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), presents an unconstitutional foundation for the removal of due process and equal protection vested in the United States Constitution.

Previous SCOTUS cases reinforce federal regulation of immigration protocol and procedure, extending far back in American legal history. The 1893 case Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) involved the deportation of three Chinese residents who were arrested and subsequently deported under the 1892 Geary Act, which required all Chinese residents in the U.S. to carry certificates of residence in order to prove their legal status. Fong Yue Ting and two other residents, who were arrested for not carrying such paperwork, argued that the Geary Act was unconstitutional due to the fact that deportation without a jury trial violated the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The holding in this case established in favor of the United States that the “power of Congress to expel, like the power to exclude, aliens, or any specified class of aliens, from the country, may be exercised entirely through executive officers.” [3] Under Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, the court evidently vested the federal government with the exclusive power over immigration policy. 

While it has been recognized that the federal government has broad oversight over the legislation and enforcement of U.S. immigration policies, there, too, have been cases that explicitly assert noncitizens’ rights to due process procedures in legal adjudications. In the 2010 case Padilla v. Kentucky (2010), Jose Padilla, a lawful permanent resident of the United States for over forty years and a U.S. military veteran, faced deportation after receiving ineffective legal counsel that failed to inform him of the deportation consequences of his guilty plea—undermining a fundamental pillar of due process in American law. SCOTUS authoritatively held that it is “critical…for counsel to inform her noncitizen client that he faces a risk of deportation.” [4] An essential function of due process under both the Sixth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution is the right to informed legal counsel which this case avidly extends to noncitizens. It is clear, therefore, that while broad precedent supports federal oversight of immigration proceedings, due process protections must extend to both citizens and noncitizens alike. This line of constitutionality has been explicitly drawn–a line that SCOTUS, now, seeks to cross. 

One case in particular is likely to serve as a key precedent if the Supreme Court seeks to uphold federal oversight of broad immigration policy. In a 5-4 decision in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order suspending the entry of nationals from several countries, including Iran, Iraq, and Syria, citing increased threats of terrorism—a policy widely known as the “Muslim Ban.” Here, the Court decided that it was within executive and federal authority to institute this immigration policy, considering that it was “neutral on its face.” [5] The court justified its “neutrality” by claiming that this ban was not denying people admission into the United States based on their specific religion, but rather as a national security measure vested in the Executive Branch. [6] This holding, which relied on the vested power of immigration policy in the federal body, would serve as a means by which the conservative majority Court would uphold the Laken Riley Act. Yet, the Trump v. Hawaii (2018) decision comes into conflict with the Padilla v. Kentucky (2010) case which, as previously mentioned, ensured the due process rights of non-citizens in legal proceedings. These two cases come into tension with the fact that the SCOTUS holding of Padilla v. Kentucky (2010) recognized noncitizens’ rights within domestic legal proceedings whereas the decision in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) denied the rights of noncitizens in their entry into the United States on the basis of national security. It seems, however, that the Laken Riley Act regarding the detainment and deportation of noncitizens after entry aligns more with the domestic legal circumstances of Padilla v. Kentucky (2010). In this way, it would be in alignment with the previous precedent of Padilla v. Kentucky (2010) for the Supreme Court to deem the Laken Riley Act unconstitutional.

This conflict leads to the conclusion that a SCOTUS decision on the basis of Trump v. Hawaii (2018) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) would violate the due process protections and equal protection defenses inherent in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. 

The precedent of equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment is embedded into a long lineage of Supreme Court cases, stemming from the case Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886). In this landmark case, the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment does not solely protect citizens, but extends to noncitizens as well. [7] In the Laken Riley Act, the mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants who are accused or arrested of committing a crime without the possibility of bail or provision for release if charges are dropped violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that people will be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” [8] 

The Supreme Court ought to begin by examining whether there exists a precedent that affirms that the right to due process extends to noncitizens as well as citizens. One such case that is deserving of the high court’s attention in answering this question is the 2001 Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) which states that “Once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment applies to all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.” [9] Herein, it could not be stated more clearly. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment applies irrespective of an individual’s status as well as their criminal status in the United States. Moreover, this case deemed the indefinite detention of undocumented individuals awaiting deportation, unconstitutional. With regards to the Laken Riley Act, the refusal of bail and release even if charges were dropped demonstrate a clear effort to detain indefinitely with a slim possibility of deportation, exhibiting a clear contravention of constitutional principles. 

It begs the question: how will the current SCOTUS reconcile these constitutional violations in its likely ruling in favor of the Laken Riley Act? The most likely answer: it won’t. There are moments in United States legal history where the court has decided to simply ignore constitutionally endowed protections–one of the most pivotal being Korematsu v. United States (1944). In this landmark case, the United States decided to confine Japanese citizens into internment camps under the federal war powers, violating the Due Process protections of those citizens. Chief Justice John Roberts in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) described Korematsu v. United States (1944) as “morally repugnant.” [10]

It is wholly ironic then that this same court will have decided to reinforce and apply a “morally repugnant” standard of legal procedure in this case regarding the detainment of undocumented individuals on mere suspicion and accusation of crime. While the presumption of innocence is at the core of the popular American ethos, it is also firmly grounded in legal precedent. It is not merely a meaningless saying, but rather an overarching legal standard that has been affirmed and reaffirmed in countless cases which include both Coffin v. United States (1895) and Taylor v. Kentucky (1978). [11] This presumption of innocence is clearly not reserved for citizens alone but applies to everyone, regardless of their immigration status in the United States. The Laken Riley Act disrupts and violates this deeply rooted and longstanding legal tenet, to the detriment of a large portion of American residents. It becomes evident, then, that a new American legal standard is emerging—one in which individuals are not innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven innocent.

Edited by Ashley Park

[1] Britt, Katie. S.5 - Laken Riley Act. 29 Jan. 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/5

[2] Britt, Katie. S.5 - Laken Riley Act. 29 Jan. 2025. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/5

[3] Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 (1893)

[4] Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 374 (2010)

[5] Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 29 (2018)

[6] Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 29 (2018)

[7] Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)

[8] U.S. Constitution, amend. 14, sec. 1.

[9] Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 679 (2001)

[10] Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 38 (2018)

[11] Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432 (1895); Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478 (1978)