Yes, the rule of law is in danger from Trump. But there's an even greater threat

San Francisco Chronicle​

a day ago

For the past five months, myself and others in the legal world have criticized the illegality and unconstitutionality of President Donald Trump's extreme executive actions.
Last month, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that Harvard could no longer enroll international students — and that those already attending needed to transfer. There is no doubt that the administration hopes that if it can force Harvard to capitulate, it will send a message to all colleges. Indeed, Noem explicitly posted on X, 'Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.'
It is a blatant illegal act of reprisal against Harvard to target its international students.
But, lost in the legalese, I fear we have at times failed to pay sufficient attention to the basic lack of humanity in so many of these actions.
What about those 6,700 international students who are enrolled? Where are they supposed to attend school next year? What does it mean to tell a doctoral student in the midst of laboratory research to transfer?
President Donald Trump's policies and actions are cruel. We can't lose sight of that.
The students are simply the collateral damage for the Trump administration's efforts to make Harvard cower.
We see that same dynamic now playing out on the streets of Los Angeles.
In deporting undocumented individuals, the Trump administration could return them to their home countries, which is the standard procedure. Instead, it has moved hundreds of people to a brutal maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Not one of these individuals has been convicted of any crime to warrant imprisonment. We know that some were taken by mistake. And even if they had been convicted of a crime, why the inhumane conditions of the Terrorism Confinement Centre in El Salvador?
Another group of individuals was deported to a U.S. Naval base in Djibouti, apparently on their way to be held in South Sudan. Apart from violating court orders, there is no apparent reason for this other than to move those deported as far from the United States as possible and to harsh conditions. The cruelty is stunning and unprecedented.
And that's the point.
As the ongoing events in Los Angeles show, Trump's aggressive and even cruel use of ICE are designed to provoke an understandably angry reaction. And he is using that as an excuse for an unprecedented nationalization of California national guard troops to send a message that he will not hesitate to use military force to stop demonstrations.
This inhumanity of those at the top of government sends a message to those who carry out its policies.
Stories of awful actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents abound.
There was a horrifying picture of a teenage girl pinned to the ground by police as her mother was apprehended by ICE agents to be deported. There was the story of a 4-year-old child suffering from cancer being deported without essential medications. And there was a 10-year-old U.S. citizen with brain cancer who was apprehended with her family in Texas while they were on their way to receive medical care.
Even during the first Trump administration, ICE agents would not go into schools, churches or hospitals. But that policy has been revoked, and now parents are afraid to send their children to school, people are afraid to worship and many will not seek needed medical care, even when they have communicable diseases that can infect others.
The lack of humanity is reflected in the Trump budget bill passed by the House of Representatives. It is estimated that 11 million people will lose their health insurance coverage if it is enacted. People will suffer and die due to the lack of access to medical care. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over 3 million people — and it says that may be a low estimate — will lose food assistance because of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the largest food assistance program.
How many children will go to bed hungry and be malnourished because of this cut? The elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development and its assistance will lead to countless deaths in foreign countries due to a lack of food and medicine.
There is a heartlessness at the core of so many of the Trump administration's actions.
For the past 45 years as a law professor, I have concluded each semester by telling my students that it is not enough to contemplate and to argue effectively. As lawyers, they have an obligation to care — to care about those affected by their advocacy and their work.
But where is the caring by those who are now running the federal government?
Myself and others have extensively written about the assault on the rule of law. It's also our duty to speak about the war on compassion. We have talked about democracies that have become authoritarian, but we haven't talked enough about societies where the government cares so little for humanity and the horrors that have resulted.
At a time when our society is deeply divided over policy, can't we still share a commitment that children be treated humanely? Can't we all agree that no one should needlessly suffer? Can't we all condemn unnecessarily cruel Trump administration policies?
In fighting to uphold the law, we also must not lose sight that we are fighting for the human beings who are protected by it.