Due process is recognized as a human‑rights protection in almost all democratic countries and generally applies regardless of citizenship; it helps prevent arbitrariness and abuse of power.

The fundamental safeguard against arbitrary state detention is habeas corpus or its functional equivalent: a person detained must be brought before a judge so the lawfulness of the detention can be reviewed and so the detainee can be informed of the charges against them.

ICE denies detainees even this, for which there can be absolutely no excuse in any reasonably civilized country.

Does the US legal system still exist in any sense that it should in a democracy?

I ask because I don’t understand how all this is possible in a constitutional state: Masked brutes who arbitrarily kidnap people on the open street without even identifying themselves, people who are interned without due process and then often simply disappear without a trace in the administrative system, total surveillance without cause, and many other massive violations that the US legal system seems to enable rather than prevent, as it should.

All of this already looks very much like a dictatorship to me, i.e., an unjust state, as none of this can be possible with a democratic constitution - at least not with one that is actually upheld by the legal system.