Detaining Haitian legal resident for months mocks due process | Opinion
Haitian detainee
What is the constitutionality of a government policy that permits the detention of a person for nine months without presenting any evidence of a crime and without providing access to our courts?
Dimitri Vorbe, a Haitian citizen legally in the U.S., is faced with this reality. His circumstances are detailed in the eye-opening June 12 article, “How long can someone be detained by immigration? Judge asked to weigh in on Haiti case,” written by Miami Herald reporters Jacqueline Charles and Jay Weaver.
Fundamental constitutional principles are intended to protect individuals from arbitrary government action. Detaining someone for an extended period without proof of wrongdoing is difficult to reconcile with guarantees of due process, judicial oversight and the presumption of innocence.
If the government can deprive a person of liberty for months without demonstrating a legal basis for doing so, what meaningful safeguards remain against abuse of power?
Even in times of public concern or national security challenges, constitutional protections exist to ensure that government authority is exercised lawfully and fairly. Citizens should ask whether prolonged detention without evidence or a court hearing is consistent with the values and legal principles that are the underpinnings of our democracy.
Arnie Gelleman,
Miami
Facility funding
After years of delay, Miami-Dade commissioners have finally approved opening the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery. The real test is whether the county will secure long-term funding to keep it open.
The current plan is only a temporary bridge. If we wait until that funding runs out, we risk repeating the cycle of uncertainty that kept this project in limbo too long.
Retired Judge Steve Leifman devoted decades to building a system that treats mental illness with care and dignity rather than incarceration. His vision can improve lives, strengthen families and make our community safer. In the long run, it will also save the county millions of dollars. It should not have taken a very public daytime attack on a downtown resident to open this center, which voters approved by referendum in 2004.
Every delay affects real people: those struggling with mental illness, families searching for help, police officers responding to the same crises repeatedly and a community that benefits when treatment replaces incarceration.
The commission should act immediately to identify permanent funding and close the gap before the pilot period ends. This center deserves a stable foundation to succeed.
Joe Sanchez,
candidate,
Miami-Dade County Commission, District 5,
Miami
Gift of peace
Instead of America and the rest of the world giving President Trump a birthday present on June 14, he gave America and the world the present of finalizing the Iran peace deal.
Jay J. Kaba,
Miami
Electric lemonade
Re: the June 13 Miami Herald story, “Miami-Dade transit officials weigh legal options over lemon electric buses.”
Who at Miami-Dade County government dropped the ball on this comedy of errors and championed this fiasco?
Who is responsible — and must be held accountable — for the time, cost, inconvenience and aggravation being imposed on all taxpayers, especially those poor souls who have no other choice but to depend on this inadequate bus service?
This is proof that short term, less expensive solutions often end up costing more in the long term. All of this could have been avoided by approving the extension of Metrorail south to Homestead and Florida City, as was promised long ago.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb,
Coconut Grove
Done deal?
President Donald Trump’s so-called big and best “deal” with Iran, has cost the lives of more than 100 little children and 15 U.S. soldiers, along with billions of our tax dollars, all because he chose to attack Iran.
This great “deal” has replaced a radical Islamic leadership with an even more radical leadership.
And wasn’t the Strait of Hormuz completely open before we attacked Iran?
As inflation and gas prices have risen, Trump’s “art of the deal” has proven to be the art of lies, moral, ethical and financial bankruptcy.
Horace G. Feliu,
South Miami
Nation’s pablum
On June 14, President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a UFC Freedom 250 fighting championship on the south lawn of the White House.
This seemed like a version of the events at the Coliseum in Rome 2,000 years ago — distract the mass of people so they won’t see the real problems.
Joe Smariga,
Fort Lauderdale
Space between us
SpaceX and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is tripping!
Why would any rational person want to live on a planet that will not sustain life outside a heavily insulated bubble, overlooking a barren landscape that is constantly bombarded by radiation and meteors and asteroids of various sizes?
There is no substitute for Earth anywhere close enough to reach with our present technology.
Selling real estate on Mars could start with the old pitch: location, location, location.
However, you couldn’t pay me to live there. There is no place like the big blue marble we call home. I suggest we take better care of it.
Eric Hess,
Miami Beach
Local politics
In 2024, former President Joe Biden sailed to the Democratic presidential nomination after a primary process that was little more than a formality. The Florida Democratic Party even canceled its August primary to support Biden. No major candidate was willing to risk their career and challenge an ailing incumbent, who later had to drop out of the race after a disastrous debate.
Recognizing primaries as a healthy part of the democratic process and taking them seriously is the only way to avoid a repeat of that disaster.
With our district lines scrambled just months ago, we deserve to hear about every candidate running. Of particular interest is the Democratic primary for District 25, where Oliver Larkin is challenging U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz. This race captures many of the dynamics we are seeing play out across the country, with a progressive primarying an incumbent and strong disagreements on foreign policy.
I look forward to seeing this race play out and hope to see more local coverage of it.
Pedro Guzman,
Coral Spring
Election dysfunction
Re: the June 8 story, “RE: Trump steps up attacks on California’s election system.” While President Trump whined about the “excessive amount of time it takes” for California to count its mayoral and gubernatorial votes, he might inquire of his Republican colleagues how very long it took George W. Bush to be declared president in 2000. Several issues, including the so-called “hanging chads,” caused the delay in Florida.
The Nov. 7, 2000 race wasn’t decided until the U.S. Supreme Court called it for Bush on Dec. 12 — a whopping five weeks later!
Norma A. Orovitz,
Bay Harbor Islands
Scene at the mall
Re: the June 15 story, “A Miami mall and two others in Florida have made a Top 10 list. Get the rundown.” I had to laugh when I read that Aventura had been awarded the number one mall in America.
I recall a moment before the COVID-19 pandemic, when just outside the Summer Lane entrance of the mall, there was a champagne and caviar bar.
Seated at two bar stools were a pair of presumably Russian “working ladies” who were giving every old guy like me a friendly eye and a smile as they passed by.
Yup, that mall has it all.
Don Deresz,
Miami