Photo Courtesy of St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church
Counseling
The Rev. Paul Fleck of Immigration Law and Justice New York counsels a recent applicant about her asylum application.
Immigration Law & Justice Network denounces President Trump’s Executive Orders & Emergency Declaration. Announced last night and declared effective immediately, these orders double down on an alarming trend to vilify immigrants, create serious due process and constitutional infringements, and are in clear violation of human rights law.
Trump’s Day One invokes laws and policies from the most shameful corners of American history. He has reinstated the Alien Enemies Act via an Executive Order. This is the same law used to round up and imprison innocent Japanese American families here in the United States during World War II.
Another horrific Executive Order makes any undocumented person a target by requiring everyone to register with our federal government. This is exactly what Arabs and Muslims were required to do post-9/11.
We know these violent, racist policies violate U.S. law, but it’s more than that. They dehumanize people in such a way that desensitizes us to their pain, the brutality inflicted upon them, and the worthiness of their very lives.
Under a separate Executive Order, agreements between local law enforcement and ICE are expanded, detention is expanded, and ICE is now given permission to raid sensitive locations deemed off-limits for decades. Not only do people now have to fear their local police, but they must also fear visiting their doctor, picking up their kids from school, and practicing their faith in a House of Worship.
The Executive Orders not only codify the dehumanization of immigrants, but they also terrorize every facet of their daily lives.
The “Protecting the Meaning of American Citizenship” Executive Order is particularly troubling. It excludes the American-born children of undocumented immigrants and visitors to the U.S. from birthright citizenship, a right established under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Trump Administration does not get to rewrite the Constitution and decide who is “American enough” to deserve U.S. citizenship.
We reject their efforts to fundamentally change who we are as a nation by attempting to alter the Constitution and ending long-standing traditions of refugee resettlement and access to asylum.
Multiple orders and the newly announced Emergency Declaration will collectively close the border and end asylum as we know it. Reinstating the dangerous “Remain in Mexico” policy exposes migrants to murder, kidnapping, rape, and violence perpetuated by organized criminal gangs as they wait in Mexico for their claims to be processed.
In the face of these divisive and cruel attacks on immigrants and their families, the 19 sites of the Immigration Law & Justice Network will continue to defend and uphold the rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers across the United States.
We know our communities are made stronger when all people can live with dignity, in safety, and have equal access to the law.
Immigration Law & Justice Network is related to the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.