The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“In the day he took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution President Donald Trump began efforts to rewrite it, issuing an executive order purporting to end the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. This unilateral order presaged a series of alarming power grabs in the following months—beginning with immigration.
“From the very beginning of his first presidential campaign to his second time in office, Trump has zeroed in on the issue of immigration, not just testing the bounds of power, but consolidating it. Indeed, in my opinion, the path to authoritarianism is being built on the backs of immigrants.
“As the head of a legal organization that advocates for immigrants, I’m cursed with a front-row view of the framework that threatens to erode our democracy. While ostensibly targeting immigrants, what is being constructed is both the infrastructure and compliance that will facilitate a broader loss of rights for all Americans. . . .
“Trump has created a new registry requiring millions of undocumented people—even those with pending immigration cases—to provide addresses and fingerprints while carrying proof of registration at all times. . . . This registration policy echoes historical atrocities that enabled severe human rights violations. In the U.S., forced registration led to Japanese American internment during World War II and profiling of male immigrants from 24 predominantly Muslim countries after 9/11.
“Trump has invoked wartime powers to expand his reach and suspend constitutional protections. . . . One [example] is Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father with legal permission to live in the U.S. Even though the Administration admitted to deporting Abrego Garcia by mistake, Trump is refusing to take any steps to bring him back, in open defiance of the Supreme Court and other federal court rulings. . . .
“Trump is counting on fear to command our silence. Rather than acquiesce, we must speak up to defend our increasingly fragile democracy before it vanishes entirely.” — Trump’s Attacks on Immigrants Are an Attack on Us All, Kiko Matos, Time, 5/2/25 [Link
Fact Check of Above Quote: If we are to believe this writer, Donald Trump is a lawless dictator—and a king—who’s on the brink of making our “fragile democracy” vanish. The paranoia here is mindboggling. Recently, we’ve seen large demonstrations by anti-Trump activists in many of our cities—hardly the sort of thing that would happen if Trump were truly the “fascist” those opponents claim he is. Actually, democracy seems to working pretty well in America. It was working when the majority of American voters last year cast their ballots for Trump when he ran on a platform of enforcing our democratically-enacted immigration laws.
This writer, Kiko Matas, is flirting with absurdity when he likens this enforcement directed against illegal aliens with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, which violated their rights as citizens. The two situations aren’t comparable at all.
It is true that some federal judges have ruled against Trump’s actions on immigration, but he has not defied any court order. Instead, he has appealed rulings against him, and sometimes won on appeal. His appeals were completely lawful. After this article appeared, the Trump Administration complied with the Supreme Court’s order to bring Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien and MS-13 gang member, back to the United States. As for challenging birthright citizenship, Trump is right to question this faulty interpretation of the Constitution. His challenge to it can resolve the issue by sending it to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling.
Enforcing our immigration laws upholds our country’s rule of law, which promotes well-being of all citizens. Interestingly, none of the current Trump haters had any anything to say when former president Joe Biden played dictator. Ignoring and twisting the law, Biden opened our country to a massive flood of illegal aliens, a flood which only abated when Trump came into office. In the minds of some people, that kind of dictatorship is how they define democracy.