Forced by public outrage to partially backtrack on his policy of zero-tolerance for border crossers, the president has been trying to figure out other ways to push his nativist agenda. To that end, he’s ramped up his propaganda efforts, on Friday holding a public event to call attention to, in his own words, “the American victims of illegal immigration.” On Sunday the president tweeted:
We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018
....Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit - we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018
Aside from the obvious xenophobia and scare-mongering of these tweets, Trump is making an unforced legal error that will be used against him in future court cases. Organizations like the ACLU and legal experts could barely contain themselves from noting that Trump’s call for treating undocumented immigrants as if they had no legal rights is blatantly unconstitutional:
📣 What President Trump suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional.
— ACLU (@ACLU) June 24, 2018
Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally. https://t.co/qsy58VACSB
Except that here's what #SCOTUS (correctly) held in 1982:
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 24, 2018
"Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as 'persons' guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments."https://t.co/29TdE6vxDE https://t.co/Dp42Ak8tOm
These tweets will almost certainly be used in courts to challenge the Trump administration’s immigration policy, just as earlier Trump tweets on the Muslim ban have been. However effective Trump’s tweets are as propaganda, they also continue to be a self-inflicted legal wound.