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Hans von Spakovsky appeared on Life, Liberty & Levin to explain a basic but widely misunderstood legal reality: noncitizens in the United States do not enjoy the same breadth of constitutional protections as lawful citizens when it comes to immigration enforcement and removal proceedings. The clip emphasized that what many on the left portray as blanket “due process” protections for everyone is, under current law, far more constrained for those here unlawfully.
Von Spakovsky laid out how immigration law operates differently from criminal law, noting that removal hearings and administrative determinations are not equivalent to criminal trials and therefore carry different procedural protections. He warned that conflating the two obscures the government’s ability to deport people who do not belong here and weakens public safety tools available to law enforcement.
Earlier this month von Spakovsky joined Advancing American Freedom as a senior legal fellow, bringing decades of experience in the Justice Department and conservative legal circles to the debate over enforcement and the rule of law. His move to AAF underscores the priority conservatives are placing on legal expertise to restore border and immigration policies grounded in existing statutes.
From a conservative perspective, these legal distinctions matter because they shape real-world outcomes: who is detained, who is deported, and who remains free to commit crimes or draw on public resources. Critics of current policy argue that the Biden administration’s lax interior enforcement and catch-and-release practices have effectively hollowed out the laws Congress put in place, a point repeatedly made on Levin’s program.
Policy debates should revolve around restoring the proper balance between humane treatment and the government’s duty to protect citizens, von Spakovsky suggested, not erasing the legal categories that make enforcement possible. Conservatives insist that allowing statutory distinctions to be ignored or overridden by executive fiat threatens the rule of law and the safety of communities across the country.
If Americans want a secure, orderly immigration system, the answer must be clearer enforcement, meaningful legislative fixes, and a recommitment to the principle that citizenship confers special legal and civic responsibilities. Von Spakovsky’s message on Levin is a reminder that defending the rule of law is not an ideological luxury but a practical necessity for preserving national sovereignty and public safety.
