The Other Dinh

I just attended a debate between two of Georgetown's constitutional scholars, Viet Dinh and David Cole. Dinh, former assistant attorney general for legal policy under Ashcroft, was the prime architect of the Patriot Act. Cole has been a vocal critic of the administration's war on terror especially the treatment of foreign nationals, a critque he summarizes in his new book, Enemy Aliens.

The audience clearly had their favorite. After praising the Georgetown community, Dinh paused for applause but received none. "There's a lot of love in the room today," he joked. But although many students and professors who attended the debate agreed with Cole, I suspect that the majority came to hear Dinh, who, for all the variety of opinion at the law school, is a minority voice on the faculty.

Dinh's Republican views were shaped by his family's hardship in Vietnam. His father was held as a political prisoner by the Vietnamese communists in the late 70s. Dinh escaped with his siblings and mother as boat refugees to Malaysia where they were welcomed by gunshots from a patrol boat. They later moved to southern California where Dinh worked in a sewing shop and fast food restaurant. Partly because of the Republican party's hardline stance against communism, Dinh became an active member participating in the Whitewater investigations.

Dinh said he started out at the Justice Department with the intention of reforming immigration law in two ways: one in establishing a "return to the rule of law in immigration policy" and another in liberalising the policy to allow more immigrants. While significant improvements had been made in enforcement, Dinh admitted that the relaxation of immigration laws had not happened.

To Cole's mention abuses during the detention of hundreds of immigrants, Dinh responded, "Mistakes will happen."

But overall, Dinh was unapologetic for the Bush administration's policies: "The President should have the power to detain an enemy combatant during a war against terror where combatants are not always in the battlefield. Make no mistake about it, September 11th was an act of war."