A REQUEST FOR HELP
Trump is apparently weighing a registry of Muslims in this country. If he makes an attempt to implement such a plan, I think everyone opposed to him should step forward and declare himself or herself to be a Muslim. I do not have any knowledge of how to get this proposal on social media in hopes that it will go viral, as the saying has it. I will certainly do this myself, but does anyone know how to popularize this idea?
The Danish model.
ReplyDeleteExcept that I think the proposal is for registering immigrants who are Muslim into a special database. Not sure though.
I've put the message out to everyone within the orbit of my FaceBook and Twitter feeds. How to make it go viral is an art beyond me.
ReplyDeleteI've already seen lots of people suggest this.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is the plan involves rebuilding the database of people from Muslim majority nations that was active under the Bush years. Unfortunately I'm not sure how one can falsify that information.
ReplyDeleteRight, as I understand it, the plan, by the vile Kris Kobach(*), is to bring back the NSEERS (National Security Entry Exit Registration System) that was put in place after the Sept. 11th attacks. It applies only to immigrants, but required immigrant males from certain (predominantly Muslim, plus a few places put in by idiot who didn't know better, like Armenia) countries to "register". Failure to do so was a deportable offense. My understanding is that it did very little, if anything, for national security, and may have even had some negative security impact (on top of being a bad plan itself.) So, it's a very bad plan, that won't do any good, but not quite as broad or bad as suggested here.
ReplyDelete(*) Kobach was the primary author of the various vicious "local" and state anti-immigration laws that were floating around the country for a while, seeking, among other things, to turn every landlord, school teacher, and hospital employee into agents of ICE. They were mostly stuck down on "federal preemption" grounds, but I'll not be surprised to see him now try to push such things at a federal level. He's an awful human being, rabidly anti-immigrant, and apparently a favorite to be attorney general or the head of DHS. Thanks, Michigan/Wisconsin/PA!
A friend of mine, a heterosexual woman in a long-term, committed, co-habiting, heterosexual relationship, which includes a child, plans to marry an undocumented Latina friend, who is also in a heterosexual relationship, in order to protect her from deportation. I'm in awe.
ReplyDeleteTom, I am in awe as well. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteTrump's registry of Muslims is obscene
ReplyDeleteas any other red flag he might choose
to signal an illiberal regime
good Christian must reject as much as Jews
to welcome strangers is no civic flaw
the bible emphasizes they're like us
with no allowance for a sep'rate law
no sanction for Trump's rabid animus
the Nativists are hot to bar the gate
now we've found haven, Others shant as well
as if it were mere prudence to preach hate
against a refugee escaping Hell
since Egypt, we have known a stranger's heart
we'd sin were we to thus set him apart
https://www.registerus.today/
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine, a heterosexual woman in a long-term, committed, co-habiting, heterosexual relationship, which includes a child, plans to marry an undocumented Latina friend, who is also in a heterosexual relationship, in order to protect her from deportation.
ReplyDeleteThat does sound like a very kind thing to do. But, I hope she has thought it through very carefully. Not only because it's a crime - I mention that not because violating this law in this case is morally wrong but because there can be non-trivial criminal penalties for doing this, and her current situation, as described, makes it sound to me as if this might be a case where the details of the relationship will be looked at carefully. Maybe even more importantly, she should make sure that it will actually help the person in question. That may not be the case. If the non-citizen in question entered the US "without inspection" (i.e., without permission) then getting married is not at all a sure way to get protection from deportation, because the non-citizen won't be allowed to adjust her status inside the US, and if she leaves, she will possibly face a 10-year bar for entering without inspection. (This is a serious and inhumane policy that causes major problems for many "mixed marriages", even when fully legitimate. There are some semi-risky ways to try to avoid that, but they are sure to put much more pressure on the bona fides of the marriage when it's looked at.) On the other hand, if the non-citizen has merely over-stayed her visa, then the above won't apply to her. Still, the potential for real criminal penalties for marriage fraud will be there, if it's found out. (Marriage fraud in immigration cases is a felony with a penalty of up to 5 years in prison and up to $250,000 fine. I think that, even if it's found out, such a penalty is unlikely in a "non commercial" case, and maybe it's the right thing to do anyway, but I hope she has her eyes wide open about what the possible penalties are.)
Thank you, Matt. I'll pass along the information.
ReplyDeleteWhile I suspect the idea of broad Muslim registration requirements was always a view-with-alarm overstatement, the idea of the response that everybody register as such is worth putting out there to show our solidarity with minorities, our abhorrence of the idea, amd to call attention to the perception that Trump's rhetoric has created. So thanks for the suggestion
ReplyDeletealas, these times call for a march or an anthem, not a sonnet. That's beyond me. Maybe Lin Manuel Miranda will rally the resistance
ReplyDeletehttps://www.justsecurity.org/34682/trumps-proposed-targeting-muslims-unconstitutional/
ReplyDeleteWhy Trump’s Proposed Targeting of Muslims Would be Unconstitutional
By David Cole
Monday, November 21, 2016 at 9:05 AM
" Kobach maintained that because the program he was discussing would be focused not on religion, but on countries that have a terrorist presence, the scheme would survive constitutional challenges. But there’s a huge difference between what Bush did and what Trump is proposing. Bush’s scheme had a disparate effect on Muslims, but there was no evidence that Bush himself had adopted it to target Muslims. Trump, by contrast, has left a long trail of smoking guns making clear his anti-Muslim intent.
When executive action is challenged as targeting religion, the critical question is intent: If the government can be shown to have intentionally targeted a religious group, its actions violate the Free Exercise Clause. The law need not name the religion by name. It is enough to show that an anti-religious intent was at play. As with race or sex discrimination, if the government takes action that appears neutral on its face but was adopted for the purpose of singling out a racial minority, it is subject to stringent scrutiny and virtually always invalid.
In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, for example, the Supreme Court in 1993 struck down a local Florida ordinance banning animal sacrifice because it found that the laws were triggered by animus against the Santeria religion, an Afro-Cuban sect that had recently moved into Hialeah and practiced animal sacrifice. The law did not mention Santeria on its face, but the surrounding circumstances made it clear that its intent was to single out that religion."