Washington, DC – On news of President Donald Trump’s executive orders regarding border and refugee issues, Constitutional Accountability Center President Elizabeth Wydra issued the following reaction: 
 
“President Trump’s immigration and refugee executive orders already issued and expected this week break faith with fundamental American values when it comes to the way we treat people seeking a better life in our country, and threaten to violate constitutional protections against discrimination. 
 
“We are a country that started intentionally as a multi-religious society, and declared in our Constitution that we would not allow any religious tests, would not establish one religion as preferable to all others, would not abridge anyone’s exercise of religion. Religious intolerance dressed up as security concerns is an affront to those founding principles. Following campaign rhetoric that sought to delegitimize the patriotism of Muslim Americans and promised discrimination against Muslim immigrants, President Trump’s expected order shamefully paints with the same brush refugees fleeing violence and terrorism – including brave men and women who put their lives at risk to serve our troops and who now only seek a safe place for themselves and their families – and those who perpetrate terror. It serves essentially as a back-door ban on people coming to America based primarily on their religion. We cannot tolerate religious bigotry poorly disguised as security. 
 
“We are also a country of immigrants, a country that was founded on the idea that no matter who your ancestors were, you could come to be part of the American Dream. To expend the government’s limited deportation resources on those immigrants who have come here—often as very small children—to work hard, dream big, and contribute to our communities in invaluable ways, defies common sense and human decency.”
 
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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.
 
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