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The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

Even for those whose job it is to keep tabs on the consequences of Americans installing a bonafide fascist in the White House, it is getting to be a substantial chore to keep up with the atrocities coming at a frightening breakneck speed. It is apparent that there is a reason the public servants who take the oath of office and swear to defend and support the U.S. Constitution should have a fairly clear understanding of the nations founding document and uncontested law of the land; they are required to follow it like every other citizen and that includes the mentally ill fascist in chief Donald Trump.

Of course Trumps executive overreach banning Muslims from a select few Muslim majority countries was both contrary to 239 years of American history and a decidedly bigoted act. It was also a decidedly profit-driven act because Trump only banned immigrants from the Muslim-majority nations that he doesnt have business investments in. It is also noteworthy that the countries he picked on have not been responsible for the death of even one American on American soil.

The Muslim-majority nations that are responsible for all deaths on American soil, including the Saudis responsible for the terror attacks on 911, were spared Trumps executive action; only because he has investment and business interests in those countries. One wonders how the Trump will explain that little factoid to his bigoted followers; until realizing that they are stupid enough to believe whatever dirty lie the Trump tells them about how the media is lying about his very selective and profit-driven hatred of Islam.

Despite Trumps selective defense against radical Islam he claims is the purpose of the ban, there are, as Slates Mark Joseph Stern points out, serious constitutional problems with Trumps executive order as a whole. Forget, for a moment, that Trumps order gave preferential treatment to Christians and denigrated Islam, what any reasonable person considers a religious test to enter a secular nation, or that Trumps order unilaterally established a state religion; he is shredding a mainstay of Americas democracy and civil rights. Trumps order violates the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution because he believes the document cannot possibly apply to the Trump.

What any fascist worth being compared to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein knows is necessary to earn their stripes is eliminating the concept of due process; exactly what Trumps executive overreach accomplished. According to a lawsuit filed on Saturday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Trumps religious, unconstitutional, illegal and profit-driven executive order has led to the flagrantly unconstitutional detention of perfectly legal immigrants whose lone crime is their national origin and religion. As any sane human being with an ounce of intellect and gram of decency knows intrinsically, Trumps nasty order isnt only wrong on moral and human grounds, it is also illegal in a nation with a 239-year old Constitution.

Specifically, besides establishing, by Republican executive order, a religious test to create an America that is evangelically pure, Trump violated the Fifth Amendment he just publicly swore to god to uphold. That Amendment provides basic procedural guarantees to any person detained in the United States no matter if they are natural citizens, visitors, immigrants or Muslims. The Fifth Amendment forbids the government, including a bigoted fascist government employee in the White House who thinks he is above the law, from depriving any individual of liberty without due process of law. That includes an arrest warrant, indictment, charge, legal counsel, trial and so on.

Thus far, the people being detained according to Trumps order all arrived in America lawfully and with the requisite documentation issued by the United States government. As noted by Mr. Stern, pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act those immigrants, Muslims or not, have a legal right to apply for asylum and have their claims processed by federal authorities. But this is Trumps America and instead of adhering to the law or the Constitution, on orders from fascist Trump the government has placed most immigrants in detention without a hearing or any kind of judicial oversight (due process), and banned them from speaking with legal advocates (attorneys).

It doesnt matter how god-like Trump believes he is, he cannot issue an order that unconstitutionally deprives anyone in America, immigrant or not, of their liberty without due process of law. The government cannot indefinitely detain a lawful visitor without a hearing or any semblance of reasonable suspicion just because a so-called president issued an unconstitutional executive dictate. He is also prohibited by the equal protection segment of the Due Process clause from singling out lawful visitors based on their religion or nation of origin.

Still, Trumps order mandates that federal law enforcement officers ignore longstanding fundamental constitutional principles because he thinks he can implement an illegal system. An illegal system, by the way, that informs any thinking person that in Trumps America the people are ruled by a government of one man, not laws or a Constitution. It is a governing entity that has no compunction about locking up [his] perceived enemies based on their identity and religion.

The only reason due process laws even exist was to limit an authoritarian tyrants ability to summarily order unlawful arrests of his perceived enemies. Obviously, Trump really does want to emulate Philippine president Rodrigo Dutertes practice of detaining human beings without any evidence they violated any law or judicial process. At least Trump has not yet order law enforcement officials to summarily execute the legal immigrants, but if left unchallenged by decent Americans it cant be far off.

Donald Trump is a danger to the nation, and the world, on myriad levels, and paramount among those dangers is his flagrant disregard for any laws, but particularly the nations law of the land, the Constitution. One thing is clear about Trump; he not only has no concept that he is not above the law, he willingly trashes the Constitution he just swore to somebodys god that he would support and defend. That is so much more than just really bad news, it is a Constitutional crisis informing that America is now really in crisis.

The above commentary is the sole opinion of its author.

Constitution, Constitutional crisis, Due Process, Fifth Amendment, immigrants, Islamophobia, Muslim immigrants, trump, trump muslim ban

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Opinion: Trump Creates a Constitutional Crisis With Muslim Ban - PoliticusUSA

Hameed Darweesh aided U.S. armed forces in Iraq as a translator and electrical engineer for over a decade. For obvious reasons, that put his life at risk. After his home was raided by Baghdad police and two of his colleagues were murdered at work, he and his family fled to another part of Iraq, according to court documents. Darweesh and his family then had to flee their new town when a shopkeeper informed him men driving around in a BMW were asking for him and wanted to know where he lived.

Darweesh is one of thousands of Iraqis who have risked their lives by cooperating with or working for the U.S. government. Congress created the Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to get people like him who have "provided faithful and valuable service to the United States Government" out of harm's way. But the process is painfully slow, and the number of people who actually receive visas after receiving promises of protection from the U.S. is shameful.

After over three years of applications, background checks, medical exams and other processing, the Darweesh family finally received their visa last week. They got on a plane immediately. While they were in the air, thinking they were finally on their way to the land of the free, President Trump signed a cruel and illegal executive order on immigration.

The order bans nationals from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days; the White House initially said this should be interpreted to include even those who are lawful permanent residents of the U.S. who had been out of the country temporarily. The order also halts all refugee admissions from anywhere in the world for 120 days, and all refugee admissions from Syria where one of the greatest humanitarian crises since the Holocaust is underway indefinitely.

Darweesh was separated from his family upon arrival at New York's JFK airport and held in detention without access to his attorneys for 19 hours. While he was detained, the ACLU and other legal groups filed an emergency petition in New York federal court on behalf of Darweesh, another Iraqi man detained at JFK and similarly situated individuals that is, the unknown number of visa- and green-card-holders being unlawfully detained at airports across the country.

Trump's executive order is all kinds of illegal. As the ACLU's complaint explains, the Fifth Amendment bars the government from depriving individuals of their liberty without due process of law. The Immigration and Nationality Act, as well as U.S. obligations under international law, give any alien present in the U.S. the right to apply for asylum. And the United Nations Convention Against Torture bars the U.S. from returning a noncitizen to a country where he or she faces torture or persecution.

Attorneys also argued Trump's executive order violated detainees' Fifth Amendment right to equal protection of the law because it discriminates on the basis of national origin and is motivated by animus toward Muslims. And they said Trump lacks the authority for his actions under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president broad immigration powers but specifically forbids discrimination on the basis of a person's race, nationality or place of birth or residence in the issuance of visas.

The New York court issued an emergency order temporarily barring the government from deporting anyone being held under Trump's order nationwide because those individuals will likely be able to prove after a full hearing that their due process and equal protection rights have been violated. It didn't order that detainees be released, but Darweesh and a number of other detainees held at JFK have been. In a similar lawsuit brought by detainees at Dulles airport, a Virginia court barred deportations for lawful permanent residents (people with green cards) for seven days and ordered that detainees be allowed to speak to lawyers. A Massachusetts court, meanwhile, ordered all detainees in the state to be released. "Lawyer flash mobs" at airports across the country have been frantically trying to get detainees released, but the situations of the estimated 100 to 200 people who the ACLU estimates have been impacted by Trump's order across the U.S. seem to be varied. Others have already been sent back to their countries.As of Sunday afternoon, there are reports of customs agents in New York violating the court orders.

These court orders don't help visa-holders who aren't currently in the U.S. or in transit, but another lawsuit is in the works that hopefully will. Trump's order is also a violation of the First Amendment's protection against the establishment of religion, which prevents the government from preferring one religion over another. It can be difficult to prove that the intent of a law is to discriminate on the basis of religion, but Trump has been unusually candid.

The man who made "Muslim ban" a household term is now claiming his executive order is nothing of the sort almost certainly because someone told him banning a religious group would be unconstitutional, as was obvious even to Mike Pence. So now Trump is denying the law is meant to discriminate against Muslims and is trying to stick to calling it "extreme vetting," with mixed results. He told reporters Saturday, "We're going to have a very, very strict ban, and we're going to have extreme vetting."

Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Saturday that Trump had stopped calling it a Muslim ban and tasked Giuliani with coming up with "how to do it legally." Indeed, someone on Trump's team appears to have made some effort to make the executive order look less unconstitutional on its face. It states that once the refugee program resumes in 120 days, applicants who are members of minority religions in their country will receive preference this is a sneaky way to give priority to Christians over Muslims fleeing persecution in Muslim-majority countries. But Trump came right out and told the Christian Broadcasting Network that the plan is to favor Christians.

There's further evidence of animus toward Muslims in the unnecessarily cruel way Trump implemented the ban. One almost wishes it was the administration's incompetence that caused the chaos and confusion that has ensued across the globe since Trump's order was released late in the day Friday from massive protests to the flurry of legal filings to the detention of a 77-year-old woman as her 9-year-old granddaughter sat at the airport with a "Welcome home, grandma" sign. Trump could have put an equally draconian order in place in an orderly manner with fair warning so people didn't leave their countries only to end up stranded in the U.S. or sent back. Trump didn't just crack down on immigration he did it in the most theatrical way possible to show his supporters he's serious about making life hell for Muslims. That amounts to further evidence of an unconstitutional purpose for the courts to take into account.

But there's something even worse than Trump's lack of concern for all the specific laws and constitutional precedents his order violates: his fundamental disdain for the principle, underlying all of our laws, that promises matter. Acting in reliance on representations made by the United States of America, people left their homes and sold their belongings. Some bought expensive plane tickets or a new shirt to celebrate their new life. Others turned down lucrative jobs or a prestigious education in other countries that would have loved to have them. Hameed Darweesh and the others with Special Immigrant Visas, who make up a quarter of those impacted by Trump's order, put themselves and their families in danger.

In his business career, Trump famously bilked Trump University students with promises he later denied making, took money entrusted to him by shareholders for ventures he ran into the ground and regularly refused to pay contractors what he'd agreed to. What Trump calls "renegotiating" a deal is nothing more than breaching a contract with someone less powerful who can't do anything about it.

And now, as president, he's acting on our behalf.America has made promises that have been relied upon by countries and people all over the globe and Trump doesn't care at all about keeping them.

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All the Ways Trump Defies the Law and the Constitution by Targeting Muslims - RollingStone.com

Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order. A judge blocked a portion of his Muslim ban on Saturday night, holding that it likely violates the Constitution.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

On Saturday night, U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly blocked a significant portion of Donald Trumps immigration ban from taking effect. Trumps executive order, which targeted Muslim refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, purported to take effect immediatelytrapping thousands of people in legal limbo. Immigrants traveling to the United States on lawful visas were detained at airports across the country, and those attempting to fly to America were refused entry on their flights.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit Saturday morning on behalf of two Iraqi refugees detained at JFK International Airport and others similarly situatedthe many lawful immigrants who had just arrived in the U.S. on a valid visa or were then en routealleging a constitutional violation. Donnelly ruled in their favor, issuing a nationwide stay. Her order forbids the government from deporting lawful immigrants who arrived after the ban was issued. Its immediate effect should be the release of any immigrants currently being detained at airports and allowing entry to those who left for America before the order was signed, as the government is no longer able to legally deport them.

Donnellys order held that Trumps ban very likely violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That bedrock constitutional principle forbids the government from depriving individuals of liberty arbitrarily and without a fair hearing. Yet this discriminatory capriciousness was the essence of the ban. In accordance with Trumps executive order, Customs and Border Protection agents detained immigrantswithout judicial approvalwhose only crime was their national origin, then threatened to deport them. This capricious denial of liberty without basic due process clearly ran afoul of the Fifth Amendment. Donnelly also suggested that the bans targeting of individuals on the basis of national origin and religion probably violated the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause.

Much of Trumps order remains in force. Immigrants and even green-card holders from those seven Muslim-majority countries are still generally prohibited from entering the U.S. The ACLU and other legal groups will challenge the remainder of the ban in due time. But for now, they have won relief for a number of immigrantsand scored the first legal victory against President Donald Trump.

*Update, Jan. 28, 2016: U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has also issued an order requiring the government to let the dozens of lawful permanent residents being detained at Virginias Washington Dulles International Airport speak to attorneys. Her order bars the deportation of those held at Dulles for at least one week.

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Judge Blocks Part of Trump's Muslim Ban as a Likely Violation of the Constitution - Slate Magazine (blog)

Treveno Campbell is charged with the killing of Memphis police officer Martoiya Lang in 2012 during the execution of a search warrant. Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal

January 24, 2017 - Treveno Campbell is charged with killing Memphis police officer Martoiya Lang.(Photo: Yalonda M. James | USA Network - Tennessee)

Former Memphis police Officer Timothy Goodwin pleaded the fifth Saturday in the case of Treveno Campbell, who is charged with shooting Memphis police Officer Martoiya Lang to death during a search warrant.

Goodwin was one of two officers relieved of duty as the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation looked into inconsistencies in officers' statements about what happened after Lang was shot.Goodwin, who suffered from symptoms ofpost-traumatic stress disorder after the shooting,was later granteddisability pension for retirement.

He was subpoenaed for the defense.

Ill be exercising my Fifth Amendment right, he said during a hearing while the jury was out of the room.

Testimony in Campbell's trial began Tuesday and was scheduled to continue Sunday. Defense attorney William Massey said Campbell may testify.

Langwas shotDec. 14, 2012. The 32-year-old was a nine-year veteran,a mother of four and a member of the OCU's Team Six, which executed more than 200 search warrants that year. She was the first female officer killed in the line of duty in the history of the police department.

The day Lang was shot, Team Six arrived at a house in the Berclair areawhichwas the subject of a narcotics investigation. One occupant of the house surrendered, but another man inside, Campbell, opened fire on the officers, firing 11 shots and striking Lang and Officer William Vrooman,said Assistant District Attorney Alanda Dwyer.

Lang managed to fire three shots, which went into the ceiling, as she fell. Sgt. Darryl Dotson testified he shot Campbell after finding him crouched against a wall pointing a gun at him.

Once Treveno fell to the ground,he came with his hands up, Dotson testified earlier in the trial, demonstratingleaning forward and raising back with his hands up.

In court, Massey saidthat Goodwin made two different statements about what happened during the incident. In one, he saidCampbell had already hadhis hands up and then he got shot. In that statement, Goodwin said Campbell didn't look armed.

Goodwin's statements won't be seen by the jury, and he can plead the fifth, according to Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Beasley.

Beasley marked the statements as exhibits for the record.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL

Officers tell Lang jury they ID'd themselves in raid

One of the exhibits also shows the police department's Inspectional Services Bureau asked why the TACT Unit wasn't called to execute the warrant.

"I do not know," Goodwin answered.

Also Saturday, firearms expert Cervinia Braswell showed thejury three weapons involved in the case.

Braswell displayed Campbell's 9 mm pistol in addition to the .40 caliber of Langand .40 caliber of Dotson.

"The bullet from (Lang's) autopsy came from Mr. Campbell's gun," Braswell testified.

Braswell testified that 17 shots were fired during the incident Campbell fired 11 times, Lang three times and Dotson three times.

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The state has said Campbell fired upon officers after they identified themselves, while his defense counsel argued he fired because he thought intruders were invading his home, located on Mendenhall Cove. Buckets of marijuana were found in the house and shown to the jury earlier in the trial.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL

Officers tell Lang jury they ID'd themselves in raid

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL

MPD officer breaks down as he recalls seeing Lang shot

The defense began calling witnesses Saturday afternoon, including Paul Kish, a forensic consultant, who testified Campbell had three lacerations on the left side of his face in addition to the gunshot wounds.

A man who was in the house with Campbell during the incidenttestified police came in and said get down. The man, Willie Braddock, was taken into custody andcharged with drug counts.

He testified that he didnt hear anyone yelling police. Officers testified previously in the trial that members of the OCU team did identify themselvesloudly.

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Former cop pleads the fifth in Campbell trial - The Commercial Appeal - The Commercial Appeal

Protesters rally at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport against the Muslim immigration ban on Saturday.

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

The United States government is certain that Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi does not pose a security threat to the country. Thats why it granted Alshawi, an Iraqi, a visa to come to America and join his wife and children, who had already fled and resettled in Texas. (In Iraq, Alshawis family members were victims of an attempted kidnapping and a car bombing because Alshawis wife worked for a U.S. contractor.) On Friday, Alshawi boarded a flight to New Yorks JFK International Airport. While he was in the air, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting Iraqi refugees from entering the country. When Alshawis plane landed, reports the New York Times, agents from Customs and Border Protection boarded it and took him into custody. They prohibited Alshawi from contacting his attorneys, who were waiting for him at the airport. The attorneys asked a CBP agent who they should speak to in order to help their client.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Mr. President, a CBP agent responded. Call Mr. Trump.

As of Saturday afternoon, Alshawi is still being detained at JFK. He is one of multiple refugeesthe government wont say how many there arewith valid documents who is nevertheless being held at an airport. (Update, Jan. 29: Alshawi was released Saturday night.)Trumps expansive executive order prevents refugees, migrants, and even green-card holders from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. (Reuters reports that green-card holders may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.) The governments interpretation of the order has led to the immediate and indefinite detention of people who, until Friday, had every right to come into the country.

There are serious constitutional problems with Trumps executive order as a whole, including its preference for one particular religion (Christianity) and its denigration of another (Islam). The courts will debate these questions over the coming months. But for Alshawi and others like him, there is a more immediate concern: a complete and total lack of due process. As a chilling American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed Saturday demonstrates, Trumps executive order has led to the flagrantly unconstitutional detention of perfectly legal immigrants whose lone crime is their national origin and religion. It is not just morally wrong. It is illegal.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides basic procedural guarantees to individuals detained in the U.S., prohibiting the government from depriving individuals of liberty without due process of law. Alshawi arrived in the country lawfully carrying the requisite documentation. Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, he now has a right to apply for asylum and have his claims processed by federal authorities. But the government did not do that. Instead, it instantly placed him in detention, without a hearing or any kind of judicial oversight, and barred him from speaking with his attorneys.

That is an unconstitutional deprivation of Alshawis liberty without due process of law. The federal government cannot indefinitely detain a lawful visitor without a hearing or any semblance of reasonable suspicion because the president signed an executive order. Nor, under the equal protection component of the amendments Due Process Clause, may the government discriminate against Alshawi because of his national origin or religion. Yet federal officers are currently ignoring these fundamental constitutional principles. And the entire illegal system is the handiwork of one manTrumpacting far beyond the bounds of his executive authority. His is a government of men, not of laws, and it apparently has no compunction about locking up perceived enemies based solely on their identity. The very concept of due process emerged from a desire to limit the kings ability to order unlawful arrests. It appears we are returning to the days when the head of state can detain purported threats without a whiff of evidence that they have broken a law.

One of the ACLUs other clients, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was freed on Saturday after Democratic representatives lobbied for his release. (Darweesh risked his life in Iraq working as an interpreter for the U.S. Army.) Alshawi is still being held, and the ACLU has requested a habeas corpus for him and those similarly situated. This extraordinary and uncommon relief would require the government to bring those detained before a judge and explain why they should continue to be held. When attorneys must resort to a habeas corpus petition to obtain basic due process rights for clients who have done nothing wrong other than being Iraqi Muslims, the federal government has entered dangerous territory. What is happening today is a constitutional crisis. And it may only be the start of Trumps assault on the rights of minorities in America.

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Trump Has Suspended Due Process for Muslims in America. This Is a Constitutional Crisis. - Slate Magazine (blog)