This is the Cato Daily podcast for Monday, March 24th, 2025.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Administrative courts have a bad track record at the federal government.

They're regularly used to deny due process for people brought before them.

Their worst feature, however, might be that they're taken seriously as courts,

which of course, they're not. So what does that mean in the context of immigration?

Cato's David Beer and Will Yateman of the Pacific Legal Foundation comment.

Dave, a recent podcast I recorded with our own Ilyosomen, discussed the whisking of several people accused on pretty shaky claims that they were affiliated with a Venezuelan gang were whisked off to an El Salvador prison.

Those men received zero judicial process before they were sent off.

Some of them who were claimed to have been a part of this gang.

The White House and the White House's defenders say that this is legitimate use of this so-called Alien Enemies Act of 1798 or 89, in any case, a very long time ago.

But there are others, people who are in the United States

legally, who have received hearings of a sort and in seeking their removal from the United States.

When they receive these hearings, it's not clear that that's judicial

process, or I should say, it's clear that it's not a judicial process. Can you walk us through

what has happened to this activist in New York? Yeah, so when you're charged as removable,

the first stop is the immigration courts. And these are, we call them

courts, but these are our attorneys within the Justice Department. They are, again, they are ultimately

reporting to the president of the United States and the

attorney general. They're part of the executive branch. And so when someone, even a legal,

permanent resident of the United States, the government wants to remove that person, they are

brought first before what they call it an

...