For instance, I have a close friend who’s the American-born son of Pakistani immigrants (themselves now U.S. citizens), who is very concerned. I’ve been telling him I don’t think he has all that much to worry about (particularly if he doesn’t travel outside the U.S.) because as a U.S. citizen there are much stronger protections for his rights than for foreign citizens, including lawful permanent residents. I suspect some of you will disagree with that assessment.
Of course we’re all worried about other folks we know, who don’t have U.S. citizenship (I have several coworkers who are Iranian citizens, for example). And of course there’s the possibility that Trump’s actions and rhetoric will incite hate crimes or a terrorist attack. But I’m talking specifically about the Trump administration doing something that directly infringes on the rights of Muslim U.S. citizens living in America.
Yes, and I think it’s generally regarded as an action that would be ruled unconstitutional today. (Perhaps I’m wrong about that. I am not a lawyer nor an expert on Constitutional law.)
You might say “But why would Trump care?” But my impression is that he generally wants to do things he can get away with. E.g., he says “We’ll register all the Muslims!” or something equally stupid, and then his subordinates write it up as “We’ll keep a list of people immigrating from majority-Muslim countries” (still a bad idea, but one that might survive a court challenge), and he says “See, I did that thing I said I was going to do.”
Look at all the things you wrote prior to making it clear your specific concern:
Maybe it’s inadvisable as a Muslim citizen of the USA to travel outside the country right now,
Your Iranian coworkers are in a precarious situation because they are not citizens,
Trump’s actions and rhetoric do incite hate crimes and terrorism. It’s not just a possibility, it’s a fact,
Let me add: My immigrant wife is worried the visas of her sister and mother might eventually be revoked. She has good reason to worry that her mother may be barred from seeing her granddaughter.
Your specific concern over rights seems to be completely missing the point. Maybe Trump will never go that far, but so what? So many awful things are happening all around you from the mental anguish of knowing you are a second class citizen to being barred from your job or visiting your family that I fail to see why limiting concern to our rights is of any value in these circumstances.
I don’t think there is quite yet the political will to incarcerate or deport Muslim citizens whole sale.
I would expect that there is a greater danger of low level harassment, things like greater difficulty getting past security at airports, FBI investigating who is a member of which mosque, justice department failing to act on claims of mistreatment of Muslims by police.
There is also some danger that as the general tone of government becomes that Muslims are indeed a threat to America, individuals might take it as their patriotic duty to harass Muslims on their own.
I know, and I do worry about those things, and I don’t mean to minimize them. We already have a lot of threads discussing the plight of those directly impacted by Trump’s policies. But I think there is value in assessing how far this is likely to go, and who is or isn’t likely to be directly affected. Certainly for my friend and others in a similar position, there is value in having a realistic idea of how much their rights are likely to be infringed upon in the coming years.
I am absolutely not saying that the current actions of the administration are A-OK, so long as they continue to only screw over refugees, green card holders, and folks here on work or student visas.
Edited to add: I’m very sorry to hear about your wife’s situation.
Not just because of the actions against Muslims, because that would be bad enough. But because for it to happen we would need World War III or some terrorist attack that makes 9/11 seem tame by comparison.
Not that I’m saying “don’t worry, it could never happen again”, but isn’t the fact that it hasn’t been overturned because it’s never been done again, so no one could challenge it in court? One would assume that any attempt to repeat that atrocity would be met with immediate court challenges, which one would hope would overturn the ruling.
Trump stated during the campaign the ban would even apply to American servicemembers who are Muslim. Does anyone really believe this particular executive order was not a trial balloon?
9 Republican Senators have opposed this blanket ban on travelers and refugees so far. I do not worry about Congress supporting further rules against on visa holders, refugees, and the loved ones of American citizens. Trump is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry. The real damage will all be extrajudicial.
Well, he did call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. I don’t think it requires too much interpretive creativity to think that, by “total and complete shutdown” Trump meant a total and complete shutdown. A shutdown that carved out exceptions for American service personnel would not be total and complete.
The fact that, if Trump means what he says, US service personnel serving abroad would be prevented from returning to the United States was noted at the time.
It was unconstitutional then. Maybe now, in 2017, it’s an unconstitutional act. But what if there’s another 9/11 type event – then I think you’d see deference to the Executive, particularly with a 5-4 majority, as what is likely to be the case in a matter of months. Your friend has very good reasons to be concerned. America has a history, and some of it is dark.
Trump wants to be president and he wants to make it a full term without either being impeached or going insane. He leaves the details to his advisors, and some of them are shady characters who have been (or will be) appointed to office with an unprecedented lack of scrutiny in the modern age.
Here’s the danger. We’re all talking about Trump in the present, with the current set of dynamics.
People old enough to remember George W Bush in 2001 will remember that he was regarded as a weak and almost semi-legitimate president for much of that year – until September 11th. Then it all changed.
What do you think would happen if there were a national tragedy like that under Trump? I’m guessing something similar. Americans would be frightened. Trump would say “I told you so,” and everyone, from mainstream journalists to the judiciary, would defer to the Commander in Chief to protect us. It would be our Reichstag fire, our Turkish coup.
You think the mainstream media would just start giving Trump a pass? Given the comparisons that have been routinely made between Trump and Hitler, I’d expect the media narrative to be “Trump is trying to make this his Reichstag fire.”
I’m not sure how much influence the media actually has, but I don’t think they’d roll over and become a mouthpiece for Trump, even in the face of a national tragedy.
