Trump, the Chaos-Bringer, Strikes Again

First, the political. There’s been all the brouhaha these past few weeks about the de facto family border separation policy that the Trump Administration enacted. He ended up by the end of this week giving at least the motions of backing down in the face of opposition from the public and from even his own party in Congress, party protest that provoked seeming to finally get off the pot in voting on immigration reform.

Trump then pivoted and told Congressional Republicans that they were “wasting their time” talking about immigration before the Mid-Terms, which is particularly zany when they were talking about it only because he had stepped on himself in the news on the topic. And he did that even as he was meddling in Congressional discussions about the two competing bills that were in Congress, a hard-right version and one that is only awful.

And all of that in the bag, we now get this:

❝ President Trump on Sunday explicitly advocated depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the United States illegally must immediately be deported without trial …. ❞

So in many ways, we can do a full stop right there. This is a direct attack on the rule of law, and on the Constitution.

The Executive Branch does not get to simply say, “You’re guilty” and pass judgment. That’s precisely why we have courts.

Among other things, just look at the 14th Amendment, which says the government may not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

It doesn’t say “citizen”. It doesn’t say “person legally present”. It says any person.

That in turn includes the very question of determining if someone actually is in the country properly. That’s why, in part, we have immigration courts, and we don’t just have cowboys on horses riding around and picking up people who look funny or talk funny or do something else that attracts xenophobic reaction, and hauling those people to a border crossing and booting them out.

In many ways, this is parallel to the case of prisoner in Gitmo. Folk like Trump wave their hands and say, “They’re terrorists! Why do they need a trial? Lock ’em up and throw away the key.”

Except that the determination of someone being a criminal is not being arrested or picked up or apprehended or accused. We have courts and trials to decide that under the rule of law. The stereotype of the rogue cop acting as “judge, jury, and executioner” is villainous precisely because it subverts that separation of powers that promote actual justice.

Because it all boils down to, “How do you know?” How do you know they’re a terrorist? Well, they are being treated like one. How do you know they are an illegal alien? Well, they don’t speak the language well, or we picked them up doing something funny, or they look just like the illegals we arrested last week.

And if you can’t answer “How do you know?” better than that, then you’re advocating for extending the same logic to any criminal matter. How do you know they are guilty? Well, the police arrested them. How do you know they committed the crime? Well, look, they’re in jail, where the police put them.

If you can do this to accused terrorists, to accused border-crossers — you can do it to anyone. For anything.

You know, like in those countries that we used to criticize for doing just that very thing.

Of course, Donald Trump is an old hand at this. The case of the Central Park 5 stands out in this. [1] For him, the fact of arrest and his own snap judgment (or something he hears on Fox) determines actual guilt.

Except, of course, when it’s one of his friends and cohorts. At which time, the accusations are dismissed as a witch hunt, the law enforcement agency is accused of being corrupt, and Donald notes that the person is only accused which doesn’t mean that they are guilty.

Due process for me, but not for thee.

(This assumes that Donald is being, at least, honest. The whole thing could be simply red meat thrown to his xenophobic base, whatever he actually believes.)

Moving on.

❝ In a pair of tweets sent during his drive to his Virginia golf course, … ❞

Remember when Trump used to criticize Obama for how much time and money was spent on his golf playing. Yeah, those were good times.

❝ … Trump described immigrants as invaders … ❞

I’m sure all those evangelical supporters of Trump will hasten to point out to him all the biblical verses calling on the faithful to welcome foreign strangers, sojourners, non-natives, and the like.

I’m waiting …

❝ … and wrote that U.S. immigration laws are “a mockery” and must be changed to take away trial rights from undocumented migrants. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump wrote. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.” ❞

So if we think a part of our government is a mockery, it’s okay to want it gotten rid of? Okay, making a note of that …

Anyway, again, here’s Trump saying that because he doesn’t like the results or the processes, he’s just plain old happy to strip people of due process. “Hey, you’re illegal, get out.”

That doesn’t strike me as particularly, um, respectful of the law, or of the legal principles this country was founded upon. Almost, one might call it, a mockery.

He continues with the non sequitur:

❝ “Most children come without parents.” ❞

So …?

I mean, is the argument that because their children they should be summarily kicked out? Or is he suggesting that his border separation policy is okay because still more kids are dealt with as unaccompanied minors who haven’t had their parents dragged away from them?

Neither is particularly coherent.

❝ The president continued in a second tweet, “Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years!’ ❞

If there’s one thing Donald is sensitive about, it’s the idea that someone might be laughing at him, esp. some peer that he thinks should be showing him respect. He’s sort of like a Mafia Don in that way.

So, one must wonder, who precisely has been laughing at our immigration policy. I mean, the laughter is happening “all over the world,” so clearly we should see some headlines about it, or reports of how all his fellow world leaders make fun of him.

Now, Donald does have a point that a mathematician from, say, Norway, who has been going through the legal immigration process, might resent someone hopping the queue, as it were. But, then, that person probably isn’t fleeing abject poverty, drug cartel or political violence, disease, sickness, and death.

People don’t cross the Southwest Desert on a whim. People don’t bring their families with them through northern Mexico just because they’ve heard they can live on Easy Street in the US and get an Obamaphone. People don’t take all those risks just because they’ve heard it’s easy to be a rapist up in America. I’m not going to encourage illegal immigration, but I’m also not going to make up libels about those doing it, as our President does.

❝ Immigration must be based on merit — we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!” ❞

Maybe so — but I don’t trust Donald or his cohorts to define “merit” … or “Great.” Among other things, respect for the rule of law should be considered important, and if people committing a crime in coming here have demonstrated some question as to quality [2], so too are politicians who want to treat “arrest” as “guilt” and act accordingly.

——

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/opinion/why-trump-doubled-down-on-the-central-park-five.html, http://www.newsweek.com/central-park-five-say-trump-doesnt-even-know-what-it-apologize-805075

[2] Though, in fact, there’s a fair body of evidence that indicate that illegal immigrants are on the whole less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/?utm_term=.e4169c495ddf

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