By Kevin Carr
Richard Nixon gave up on the modern use of executive orders, fearing civil resistance. He started using presidential decrees instead to violate constitutional rights and advance his pet policies. They never worked, but for a while Nixon had the upper hand over many of his opponents.
The latest eruptions over the use of executive orders by President Donald Trump are expressions of rejection of this trend by many Americans. The Trump’s executive orders promise to be an even bigger threat than Nixon’s, most notably on immigration.
Any politician who tries to stop people from coming to America is denounced as “anti-immigrant.” There is an easily entrenched ideal of immigration openness. The nine Latin American countries that compose most of the caravan are viewed with suspicion by many Americans.
Trump’s actions have shaken Americans out of their exceptionalist complacency. In some states laws have been passed to facilitate anti-immigrant legislation. Other states are considering similar bills.
We can debate the merits of these new laws and measures. But many Americans see this as America again returning to its old ways, before the advent of the great civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
How we got here and where we are going is important. The original idea behind executive orders, began with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
The reason was that presidents could benefit from the support of large and influential organizations such as the police and the railroad industries. President Wilson argued that when he put some police and judicial power under the direction of the president, they would behave more like federal officers.
If police and railroad employees could be controlled by their president, they would also be required to back his initiatives.
As one of the signers of the declaration declaring that this new order would lift the ban on Chinese emigration, Wilson explained that “the purpose of the Executive Order is to strengthen and discipline the free world.”
Wilson believed that the cooperation of the unions in that effort would be key to his policies. To that end, the police and the railroad unions, the top political and business organizations, would have to back him.
The support of the railroad and police unions was not necessary to prevent police and railroad employees from abusing government power. Workers in those industries, like others, have the power to exact revenge for failure to support their employer and their favorite politician. That power is real and well-known.
Their power also is reflected in the circumstances in which presidents try to keep people out of their country. It is not apparent now, but it was very common for a federal officer to come to your neighborhood and push you away. The goal was not to protect your right to self-expression or to keep them from coming. The goal was to protect the whole United States from your community being used by outsiders.
Trump tried to use this new law to keep the immigrants from the Central American caravan from coming to America. One memo, obtained by the Washington Post, showed that Trump and his staff tried to keep children from crossing the border between Mexico and the US, regardless of whether they could legally be detained. This gave the impression that they were going to make these kids disappear in the dark.
Instead, the children’s parents, regardless of their civil responsibility, arrived at the border. There was no holding prison. There was no deportation camp. There was no law enforcement uniform. There was no presence of the Department of Homeland Security. There was no specific immigration law.
Instead, there was a demand for money, and a call to abuse people, and see if they would comply. Instead of sending border patrol officers to push children away, President Trump deployed them to intimidate and bully mothers and children.
The worst of all was the promise to deport children. There was no humanitarian purpose. These children were not coming to harm anybody. They were not coming to break any laws. They were just seeking asylum. They were just coming to be with their families.
The outcome of this purge of refugees, military draft dodgers, illegals, and Muslims, as well as other immigrants from around the world, is both predictable and possible. Hundreds of thousands of people will be subject to indefinite detention and, most likely, permanent deportation.
This is just the beginning. Fear, rather than actual security, has triumphed. There is no longer any