A lawless president
President Trump is sinking to new demagogic depths with his latest utterance on border policy. Unauthorized immigrants who “invade our Country” don’t deserve due process hearings before a judge and should be quickly sent “back from where they came,” he tweeted.
It’s the darkest example yet of his harsh thinking. It’s also at odds with the Constitution and even his own timid Republican Party, which is trying to modify immigration rules that Trump repeatedly denounces. A shameless president is catering to the country’s worst impulses by ignoring basic law. Last week, Trump appeared to relent on his extremist policy of separating 2,300 children from parents who had crossed the border. Under heavy pressure, he backed off with neither an apology nor a substitute plan, keeping the country uncertain about where he was headed.
The White House is struggling to sort through the mess created by Trump. The migrant minors now are scattered across the country with incomplete records, effectively lost in many cases.
There are possible plans to turn military bases into vast holding centers for undocumented immigrants. It’s part of a “zero tolerance” outlook that hardens by the day.
Democrats, not surprisingly, have pounced, turning the wire cages with cooped up children into campaign stops.
This inhumane tangle isn’t enough for a president who shifts his thinking with head-spinning celerity. Now Trump is fuming over the need for court hearings and judicial review on applications from bordercrossers. There’s a genuine debate on how to handle an overwhelmed legal process by assigning extra judges to an enormous backlog of cases said to total 700,000.
But Trump isn’t ready to change a situation that he’s using for political advantage. His delays and moods keep shifting. On Friday, he suggested that Republicans “stop wasting their time on immigration” until after the November elections. Now he’s ignoring a founding principle of this country and the Constitution he’s sworn to protect.
Supreme Court decisions have repeatedly stated that legal hearings are required for all persons, even those who’ve entered the country illegally. The president can’t act as cop, judge and jury.
He’s also throwing down an insult to Congress, which has proven unable to come up with improved immigration rules. Any outcome will need political support that goes beyond the White House, yet the president believes he can act alone.
With control of both houses, Republicans need to remind him that his inhumane remarks and untrustworthy conduct won’t work. That protest voice needs to be heard, loudly and quickly, to stop a bully disgracing his office.