For the third time in United States history the House delivered Articles of Impeachment against a sitting president early this year. They detail a plot of corruption from the President throughout official and unofficial government channels, which endangered US interest, international standing and free democracy. What is left unsaid in those articles are a series of illegal acts and human rights violations stemming from that same president and being carried out by the entire US government. Most of these official policies are significantly more dangerous and devastating for real people than the actual impeachable actions, and they paint a much clearer picture of the cost and consequences of having a completely corrupt, immoral and incompetent head of state.
Immigration Policy
Just the entirety of Trump’s immigration policy is inhumane, dangerous and unabashedly racist against Latinos and MIddle Easterners. There are actually several specific policy changes that have gone into effect that each have their own impact on some of the most vulnerable people in the world, refugees and immigrants fleeing violence and persecution. But together they create a perfect storm of immoral policy executed inefficiently to create a multitude of factors that dissuade, endanger, imprison and harm these people.
The first and most notorious of these policies is the family separation implemented for all people crossing the border. Despite ending the policy after it had been ruled by a court as illegal, this practice continues at the border to this day. Over a thousand migrants families have been separated at the border since the policy was officially ended. It is an unprecedented cruelty despite what Fox News might say. Yes we have seen family separation before, when children crossed the border by themselves or with an unrelated adult. And from those instances under the Obama and Bush administrations we saw how terrible government immigration are at housing, caring for and keeping track of families.
However, the Trump administration has stretched those circumstances for separating children from their families and interpreted them as broadly as possible. It allows the government to separate and detain children if the parent has any sort of criminal record. That can include driving with an expired license, a decades old drug charge, or even crossing the border “illegally”. By deeming anyone crossing the border outside of ports of entry as criminals, the administration has justified indefinite detention and child separation for thousands of immigrants. Even those seeking asylum from danger or persecution.
Despite what the administration may argue crossing the border and asking border agents for asylum is a legal process. It has been in place across the world since World War II and specified under US law since 1980. The entire justification for complete and universal detention at the border is predicated on the myth that asylum seekers don’t show up for their asylum hearings. They do in over ninety-percent of cases. This policy, as admitted on several occasions by administration officials, is purposefully cruel so that it might deter border crossing and asylum seeking in general.
And that kind of purposeful cruelty is delivered efficiently. We know that the departments of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which are given carte blanche to detain and imprison immigrants, have no capacity or intention of doing so in legal or humane ways. Suits by the ACLU an investigation by UN Humans Rights Counsel into border detention facilities found appalling conditions. When detained at the border adults and children alike are housed in warehouses with no heat or air conditioning, no space for bedding, no showers, minimal running water and famously without soap. They also afford no sufficient medical care, which has led to the deaths of several migrant children in the custody of the US government. These dangerous and unregulated conditions have also allowed for the sexual abuse of young children by border patrol and immigration agents, with no follow-up investiagtions or even acknowledgement by the government. Long-term child detention facilities used by ICE now are made to have playgrounds, private housing and look nicer, but experts say they are still dangerous, and insufficient medical care still leads to the death of migrant children. This is not to speak of the psychological toll this imprisonment has on children, which may have life-long effects on the mental well-being and intellectual development.
In addition to these already inhumane and illegal asylum and detention policies is the “Stay in Mexico” policy (applied all any nationality detained at the border, not just Mexicans) which gives the government an out to deny legitimate asylum requests based on reasons completely irrelevant to their asylum claim. Instead of granting temporary asylum for legitimate claims, it requires that the person request asylum in Mexico first. This might seem fair to any Fox News patron who might lump all hispanic nationalities together and treat any legitimate claims of endangerment with skepticism anyway. However migrants were not informed of this policy before claiming asylum, and so their request is denied automatically and they are deported back to deadly situations, or some of the most dangerous cities in Mexico, where they may die, become kidnapped or trafficked. Despite these legitimate claims of danger they are still denied entry, often due to faked paperwork or negligence of ICE agents. That or they are automatically detained and end up in the despicable system of immigration prisons before deportation or court hearings. In the best case scenarios they are placed in make-shift refugee camps in Mexico where they are also in danger from drug cartels or general poor conditions.
None of these policy changes have worked to “fix” asylum or immigration practices. Existing policy was effective at ensuring safety and background screening of asylum-seekers. It is not helping address human trafficking as the adminstration suggests, because almost all human trafficking occurs through legal ports of entry, for people who are not detained This applies to drugs and weapons smuggling as well. Instead this policy is meant to curb asylum seeking altogether, by making the US seem like a less safe place than the corrupt, war-torn countries they are seeking refuge from. None of this is more efficient of safe, except at the goal of keeping people out, imprisoned and in danger.
International crimes/support of them
The inhumanity of the administration does not stop at domestic policy. Through action, policy and unhinged rhetoric this president has signalled that he has no regard for international law. He admires and encourages strong-man dictators who commit war crimes and subjugate their own people. He touts friendship with dictators like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Phillipines, who has jailed and executed political rivals and members of the press, president Xi Jinping who is currently overseeing the internment of Chinese muslims, and of course Vladmir Putin who successfully runs a police state in his own country, jailing and assassinating free press, and interfering with democracy around the world.
None of these violations of law or humanity seem to bother this administration all that much. In fact it has offered at best passive approval, and at times all out endorsement. When the Saudi Arabian government contrived to kidnap and assassinate American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, there was no action taken or even harsh words. The president denied the conclusion of several third-party human rights organizations that offered proof that the Saudi Arabian government and crown prince himself were involved in planning the assassination. Instead he insisted that his friend and best customer for American made weapons of war had nothing to do with the assassination. Whether the president actually believes that or not is not is irrelevant, because he is sending a message to the international community that our country will look away from the murder of our people, the suppression of free press, when the fact of it inconveniences the president’s agenda.
This reaction reflects Trump’s own hostility toward the press, and perhaps reveals how far he wishes he could go in suppressing it. Beyond calling any critical coverage bias or fake news, creating an environment of mistrust and alternative facts amongst his supporters, he flat out threatens and excludes press he doesn’t like. Reporters who ask difficult questions at press conferences, or ones that would force a lie rather than ugly truth, get White House press credentials denied. He threatens to sue news outlets on a regular basis for reporting facts about his company or campaign. And all too often he jokes at his rallies about physical violence against reporters, which has resulted in violence against reporters from his own staff.
Of course the same sort of support for illegal acts is extended to the other major US ally in the Middle East, Israel. Last year the Trump administration broke precedent on US policy toward Israel-Palestine relations. First it recognized the capital of Israel as Jerusalem, which outraged Palestinians and delegitimized the US stance as an arbiter of peace in the region. Then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US will no longer consider Israeli settlements and expansion into Palestine as illegal. This is not only a break from international law agreed upon by all UN and Security Council allies, but the decades old standard set since the 1940’s which declared new Israel settlements in Palestinian territory as illegal. The US stance won’t have much effect on Israel’s continued expansion of settlements and displacement of Palestinians, which has continued fairly unabated for half a century. But it is just another example of the US endorsing what the rest of the world has deemed as illegal and inhumane.
Pardoning of War Crimes and Abuses of Power
Through the presidential power of pardon Trump also seems to directly endorse war crimes and torture. He famously pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for his crimes of racially profiling and illegally detaining Mexican families in Arizona. Of course this pardon plays to Trump’s agenda and base of anti-immigrant rhetoric, but likewise shows his complete disregard for the law of civil liberties in pursuit of that agenda. Arpaio is a proven and avowed racist who made a career of profiling and persecuted Mexicans and immigrants in Arizona. At the time of the pardon many legal scholars found it a troubling sing of authoritarianism to use the power of executive pardon for those who disregard rights and civil liberties of citizens.
Two years later, Trump pardoned disgraced Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher, reinstated him in the military organization that had condemned and prosecuted his war crimes, and even met him and pushed the image of him as a national hero. This is all for a man who knowingly and by all reports happily murdered civilians in Iraq. His own brothers in arms referred to him as a “evil” and willing to “kill anything that moves”. The Navy prosecuted him and served him with a dishonorable discharge because he committed literal war crimes. The administration does not argue the facts of the case at all. It simply seems to indicate that murdering Iraqi civilians is not a crime in its view, in fact it is heroic.
By offering this pardon the administration also undermined the law and code of conduct for the Navy. It led to the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, and led to an outcry of disapproval by Navy and other military officers serving the country. This man who dodged the draft with phony excuses and family money pardoning a war criminal was seen as an utter disrespect for military service and conduct by many active personnel. It showed more than the president’s total ignorance of military matters, but his complete lack of regard for generals and career military officers.
Committing War Crimes
Of course, this was the devolving and strategically inept state of the administration when it ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani. I’ve already written on why this was a historically dangerous and incompetent decision. But the circumstances that lead to this decision are a result of a president who consistently and willingly ignores military process or international norms, and as a result every qualified military official has bailed on the administration or been forced out. This was the case when he pulled out of Syria, demonizing Kurdish allies and leaving them to die, or his continued support of Saudi Arabian war in Yemen despite congressional disapproval. It has left Trump surrounded with yes-men and war-mongers who have no regrets about the illegal basis for War in Iraq and would start one with Iran in a heartbeat. They have gotten their way, because the president needed an opportunity to seem strong by assassinating a foreign official on ally soil without any approval from congress or consultation with allies.
As if there were any doubt about the administration’s disregard for human rights cast by legal excuses or sheer ignorance of the law, the President’s rhetoric leaves us with no doubt as to his intentions or priorities. He speaks plainly enough to be heard over the dog whistle, and in a court of law most of those statements could be taken as evidence of culpability. The fact that he ran on a “ban on all muslims entering the country” was a clear case of religious discrimination poorly dressed up as a national security measure. Once it became actual policy, he had private attorney Rudy Guilliani help him design it to look less like a religious based ban, it was delivering on his promise. Likewise after assassinating a foreign general he contradicted his own administrations line that there was an “imminent attack on embassies” by insisting he was just a bad guy saying bad things that he didn’t like. He also admitted that to private citizens at his private Mar-aLago resort, but that’s a different national security crime altogether.
This president seems to delight in the rhetoric of committing war crimes. Through Twitter he threatened to target cultural sites in bombings of Iran, which is illegal by international law. He also insinuated that there would be a consequence for civilians in Iran, which is undeniable looking at the history of US wars in the Middle East, but given that Trump has pardoned a soldier responsible for those kind of civilian casualties we can read it as more of a threat than a lamentation. Not to mention his obsession with “taking the oil” which he emphasized was being done with the troop withdrawal from Syria. If that is the case it is another international crime, and he insists the same would happen in a withdrawal from Iraq or war with Iran. These are all prohibited by international law. But the law has never constrained Donal Trump in his personal or business dealings before, and it hasn’t been a concern for him as a leader of a country either.
The unfortunate fact is that these crimes committed by the US government not new nor unique to Trump. There have always been inhuman rights violations perpetrated by the US government. Political and military tensions with Iran began when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mosadegh, because of concerns about his economic policy. As a result one of the most liberal countries in the region became a religious tyranny led by military dictators, and backed by the United States. THere was plenty of looking the other way of civilians casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially under the Obama drone strike program. The CIA and FBI also targeted journalists and activists for harassment, migrants have been deported, interned and separated from families by immigration police states from WWII to 2016.
What’s different here is that these inhumane acts are not being hidden or covered up, but translated into official policy. Where in some cases they were explicitly illegal before, now they are the law. It has gone from a terrible secret to a disgusting norm of our country’s policy. They are out in the open, identifiable, and still completely illegal but nothing is being done about them. Some have argued that it’s better these crimes are being committed out in the open, because now we can see them and react appropriately, fight against the inhumane acts of our government and prosecute the criminals. Instead we have been shown that when this happens openly, we turn away and accept it as status quo, throw up our hands in futile disgust, and realize we are powerless to stop it.
Despite this there are thousands working, from within and without the government, to fight against these monstrous policies or at least help those affected by them. They are mostly advocates, activists and non-profit groups that are on the ground taking on the burden of helping these people for the government, or helping them recover from direct harm from the government. Several non-profit and religious organizations are taking in migrant children detained by the government, or helping families find and reconnect with their children detained and lost by ICE. Lawyers are giving free legal counsel and offering pro bono services to help families of immigrants find their loved ones detained at the border or by ICE. Bureaucracy within the system are also stepping up to speak out, or offering minor resistances in the form of trying to perform their jobs legally according to their duties. This also includes reporters who report the policy and actions of this administration without bias or manipulation. It is not easy nor safe in this political environment to report on the administration and press for answers where they are owed. Often it is thankless, as media is demonized and delegitimized through online campaigns, media wars or the president’s own twitter feed. But there are plenty of journalists working to get those answers and deliver the facts, even as they become more muddied and ignored. The best way to support this resistance and hold the administration accountable for its crimes is to read and learn about them, educate yourself on the law, and support the on the ground organizations doing the recovery work. The International Rescue Committee is a large organization taking on a broad spectrum of legal and humanitarian support for all refugees across the world. The ACLU is working through the courts to end illegal detention and immigration practices. And of course valuable, unbiased, well-researched news organizations are rare and under-funded resources in this media environment.
For the past three years we have been watching a vision of America become a reality. It is a reality that is cobbled together from different, half-baked philosophies, bungled in execution and completely ignorant of the reality that preceded it. It is rife with corruption and incompetence. Yet it has become a reality nonetheless.
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