Forcibly removing people from their homes never ends well. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5, “Truth,” had the “Global Repatriation Council” debate the “Patch Act,” which would return people back to their countries of origin in order to reestablish borders. There is a lot wrong with it, from both a storytelling perspective and legally.
The premise of the fictional Global Repatriation Council is to help those who had “vanished” after Thanos’s Snap to return to their lives. Spider-Man Far from Home referenced this challenge, where Aunt May reappeared in her apartment to find a new family living there and five years had passed. Being the super aunt she is, May organized a fundraiser with the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to help those who had returned.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier have turned this societal challenge on its head, with those who survived the Snap being forced out of their homes to make way for the returned. Legally that makes zero sense. It means probate laws were ignored for five years. It is one thing for those who “returned” to be in camps in order to rebuild their lives, it is another to toss people on the street who lived someplace for years.
The Global Repatriation Council appears similar to the United Nations, expect it exists for the specific purpose of helping people reset, restore, and rebuild. Such an international organization would require a charter and exist by treaty.
A US Senator represented the United States at the GRC meeting. That’s just wrong. No Senators go to the United Nations to represent the country; that is the job of an ambassador, appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate. Moreover, a Senator bragging about the ability to send US Troops to remove human beings from cities is horrific on multiple levels, starting with the fact the PRESIDENT is the Commander in Chief of the military. No Senator can do a damn thing to issue an order to the military, short of a subpoena to appear at a committee hearing. Senators do not deploy troops.
The GRC debating the Patch Act is further problematic, because a vote by an international organization does not automatically become a law. Flashing back to School House Rock, any treaty voted on by the GRC would still need to be ratified by the US Senate. Even then, there likely would need to be enabling legislation to enforce the treaty.
This should go without saying, but the United States cannot enact a treaty that would violate the Constitution. For example, say the UN voted on a treaty to strip voting rights of all women. It is gender-based discrimination that violates the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. That would not fly.
The Patch Act was described as the military removing people from different countries and returning them to their country of origin. This is the stuff of fascism, with the military removing people from a country without due process of law. While immigration is exclusively Federal jurisdiction, anyone in the United States is protected by the Constitution and cannot be denied Due Process of law. Soldiers removing people from their homes and placing them in trains, planes, or trucks, lacks any form of Due Process. It also raises the issue of the military being used for law enforcement, which is prohibited under the law.
The United States Congress needs to be alerted within 48 hours of US troops being placed in harm’s way. The army sent out to different countries to remove human beings and ship them to other countries reeks of the Indian Removal Act. No member of Congress should think, “YES, this is what our military is meant to do” and sign a check for a new trail of tears.
As stated before, none of this makes sense from a storytelling perspective. The world went on living as best it could after 50% of humanity disappeared. The very idea that the “vanished” have displaced survivors is opposite of the truth.
