A regular feature to the Chagrin Gateway Democrats from Lyn Newman

What happened?: I had the privilege of being a Voting Location Manager at the primary election on May 6th. When I had finished administering the oath of office to my team, (a deeply moving experience, by the way) one of our members piped up “Did the President have to take this oath?” The answer was that his was not exactly the same. Unlike us, the President did not have to affirm that he had never committed a felony. But exactly like us, the President took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution” However, when asked by Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker if he needed to uphold the Constitution as regards due process for immigrants, as the courts were telling him he needed to, his reply was “I don’t know”.

Why it matters?: Our country is based on certain principles that do not change from one administration to the next. Our Founding Fathers set up three branches of government to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful and making changes without careful consideration. The President cannot decide to ignore the Fifth amendment (people’s right to due process of law), however inconvenient he may find it. The President is not a King, he does not get to decide who gets access to rights and who does not. This is a large part of why we broke from Great Britain in 1776.

What can we do about it?: We need to keep reminding our Senators and Congress people to do their jobs and oversee Immigration issues. Keep those phone calls and e-mails coming. We need to support the organizations that provide legal representation for immigrants like the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center. Finally, we need to keep the problem visible. So pick up a protest sign, grab some friends and come to a rally. Let’s tell the President that the correct answer is “Yes! You do need to uphold the constitution. In fact, on January 20th you promised!”

Lyn Newman can be found on Bluesky