Multiple presidential executive orders were issued during the president’s first week in office. From moving to curtail the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to limiting support for family planning services internationally; from an order to start construction of a border wall at the cost of $12-15 billion to broad and far reaching limitations on Muslim refugees entry to the United States.
The presidential order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” is perhaps the most far reaching immigrant exclusion order issued since the internment of people of Japanese heritage during World War II. It is also patently unconstitutional.
The president and his team have engaged in a massive assault on existing constitutional protections including well-established immigration laws that already prioritize the removal of the most dangerous criminals.
The broad exclusions proposed by the president’s order, create grounds for deportation that include acts that may “constitute a chargeable offense.” That means, no charges have been filed and there has been no finding of a violation of law. The order empowers local law enforcement or an immigration official to make an extra judicial determination that a detained individual should be deported.
All residents of the United States, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution including the 5th and 14th Amendments’ guarantee of due process and equal protection.
While the ACLU and others will challenge the presidential orders, it is impossible to calculate and project how this order may impact families living in our communities.
Imagine the fear among immigrant workers including permanent residents and even citizens who may be racially profiled and caught up in deportation efforts. The domestic worker mother who is detained on her way home to care for her children or the farmworker driving to work to earn an hourly wage to feed, clothe, and house his family.
This presidential order makes no distinction between the prioritization of criminals convicted of a felony and a working person who may have a misdemeanor conviction for a minor offense that was committed 10 or 15 years ago.
The order will lead to disruptions not only in the lives of immigrant families, but also to employers and local economies. It will undermine law enforcement’s dependence on all residents feeling safe in stepping forward to cooperate in reporting and solving crimes. It will also result in inestimable psychological trauma for law abiding, taxpaying immigrants.
While the media has exposed the outright lies of the new president and called them lies, not “alternative truths”, the lack of the administration’s insight to the complexities of immigration, trade, health care, and other established systems has already resulted in disruptions to our international relations, access to health care for women around the world, and a wholesale disrespect for our Constitution.
The new administration has called media the “opposition party.” An informed populace is dependent upon engaged journalists and a media with access to government leaders. The broad brush assaults on fundamental constitutional protections in the first wave of presidential orders demand continued vigilance of not only the media, but also the activism of an informed public. We erode our nation’s Constitution at the peril of our national security and humanity.
Bill Monning is an attorney who represents the 17th District in the California State Senate. He is Senate Majority Leader. Monning wrote this for the Bay Area News Group
