Oregon AG wrong in opposing Trump’s executive order

Letter date: 
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Letter author: 
Daniel Crowe
Letter body: 

My opponent in last year’s Oregon attorney general’s race, Ellen Rosenblum, has joined 14 other extreme left-wing attorneys general in denouncing President Trump’s executive order titled “Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” Rosenblum calls Trump’s order “unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful.”

As it turns out, the president is merely exercising his authority under the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, as amended. This Democrat-passed law gives the president discretion to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

So much for “unconstitutional and unlawful.” Is the president’s order “un-American?”

We are told by Rosenblum that “religious freedom” is under assault, and that America believes in tolerating different beliefs. That’s ironic: Rosenblum joined those same attorneys general in declaring that “climate change deniers” should be prosecuted for daring to disagree with liberal orthodoxy. Similarly, this is the same attorney general who enabled Oregon government to persecute a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. For the extreme left, tolerance can be a one-way street.

A little perspective is in order.

From noon Friday to noon Saturday, approximately 325,000 foreigners arrived in the United States. About 325 of them were detained for further questioning — 0.1 percent. All but about two dozen were released within 24 hours.

President Trump is actually following precedent laid down by President Carter (banned Iranians) and President Obama (banned Iraqis). Trump has restricted entry from seven of the world’s 50 majority-Muslim countries, including Iran and Iraq, all of which experience violent Islamic extremism most Americans don’t want here. Rosenblum and her allies didn’t explode in indignation when Carter and Obama exercised their authority — but then, those presidents weren’t Republicans.

No country in the world has open borders, because control of the border is a definitional aspect of being a nation. The American government — like all governments — writes the rules of entry that are in the best interests of its own people. On Nov. 8, Americans voted to put someone in the White House who would put America, and Americans, first.

As a Republican who happens to work in the Metro Public Defender’s Office in Portland and a career military lawyer, I am committed to the rule of law and to protecting Americans. Rosenblum has as much right to disagree with our president as you and I do, and it is a proud tradition of our state attorneys general to push back against federal overreach.

But that tradition is usually reserved for an area in which states have authority. Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government exclusive authority to regulate immigration. Perhaps the attorney general would like to borrow my dog-eared copy of the Constitution and ask herself: Have I solved all of Oregon’s legal problems already?