Last week, Esmeralda, a Graduate Student heavily involved with the Rose community and Rose scholars program, took a group of Rose scholars to an event happening on campus. This event was called Understanding President Trump’s Executive Order and focused mainly on the three immigration policies that Trump has created and presented to Congress during his first 100 days as President of the United States. Now, I had no idea of how bad the situation with this so called “Travel Ban” had gotten, not because it has been accepted and enforced by Congress and the Senate, but because of the confusion in the information being presented about it. My understanding of the “Travel Ban”, or known in social media as the “Muslim Ban”, was that all immigrants would be targeted for not having papers, but technically they could not all be immediately deported because that is feasibly impossible. It took me to attend this panel and have three of Cornell’s renowned faculty to explain what is actually going on in our government and who is being affected currently.
Right now, the travel ban that everyone is so worried about is not even being enforced and has been been passed by Congress or the Supreme Court. The other two bans pose a much greater concern because they have the potential to be long lasting if accepted. One relates to border security, the other talks about building a wall along the Texas and Mexico border. The one relating to border security states that everyone who have committed any kind of crime in the US is a target for law enforcement. There were raids that occurred last weekend around the country picking people up and detaining them based on this order. A little over a week ago, a student in Washington that was studying under DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – was picked up and detained.
What is scary it the amount of hatred and fear that has grown from these new orders. Basically, for citizens who generalize people of the same appearance and do not educate themselves on the facts of different cultures, any human that appears to be middle eastern and brown is considered Muslim and thus a terrorist. The amount of damage done to mosques, workplaces, and private properties belonging to these so called “Muslim” people has increased tenfold since the beginning of Trump’s presidential election. It is scary to think that anyone could get harmed simply because of the way they look, and rounded up and detained if they have even the smallest misconduct on their personal record.
It makes me proud to say that I attend a school where the needs of all students are being met to the best of the faculties abilities. In order to keep up with information being presented on these matters, the Global Cornell website has a website has detailed articles that explain what is happening in the government every day. Cornell’s law school offers initial consultations for free for students concerned about their ability to continue studying at this institution. Cornell and 15 other institutions filed a statement saying the travel ban is unconstitutional based on the fifth fifteenth and fourteenth amendment. This is a school that takes any student in any study, and it plans to stand by their motto no matter what might happen.
I hope that the amount of separation that is occurring in the United States, and in some cases around the world, lessens over time. Although I can admit that Trump was not my candidate of choice for President, he is my President and there is a level of respect that is associated with such a title. I feel as though many of these policies seem ridiculous and far fetched, but most importantly Congress and the Senate and the Supreme Court all feel the same way for the most part. There needs to be some faith placed in the system, a political system that this country was founded upon so long ago, for everyone to find some hope moving forward. Donald Trump is the President of the United States, and we must stand united in taking care of each other and being the nation that everyone has always admired and looked up to.