LISTEN, MR. PRESIDENT. The people of the grieving communities of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio are speaking up.
For the first time just listen to their pleas instead of being obsessed with crowd sizes, ratings, getting more publicity mileage than your political foes, and cheap photo-ops like when you used a baby who just lost both his parents in the mass shooting as a prop while you were grinning while showing off a thumbs up.
You inspired the gunman to massacre the victims in El Paso because of your hateful rhetoric demonizing immigrants and scaring people of a “Hispanic invasion” and “infestation”.
This is not about the issue of illegal immigration anymore. After all, your own wife Melania came to the United States and worked as an undocumented immigrant. After all, her parents were able to obtain their legal papers through what you call as “chain migration” because they happen to be the first lady’s parents and do not qualify under the merit-based policy the Trump administration has been pushing, instead of the family-based petitions.
Listen, President Donald J. Trump, to the people who have lost their parents, children, spouse, friends and neighbors to mass shooting not only in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio but all over the country. Listen to the American people living in fear that their communities may be targeted next by a deranged trigger happy shooter who has a lot of hate in his/her heart, especially those who emulate you and follow your suggestions by virtue of the power of the Office of the President of the United States.
I have been listening to many grieving people of El Paso, public officials and politicians and these steps are what they hope you would do to heal wounds, regain their trust and help solve the mass shooting epidemic in the United States:
1. OWN UP to your share of culpability in the mass shooting. Your hateful words and demonization of immigrants have been dividing this nation that is built by immigrants. Your vilification of people of color, with different religions and nations of origin, and asylum seekers running from the violence of their own countries to save their children — they have become vulnerable to the people who listen to you and those who have anti-immigrant sentiments. These shooters do NOT differentiate between documented and undocumented immigrants. They will hurt and kill those who do not look like them, especially true during the rise of violence and hate crimes perpetrated by white nationalists, domestic terrorists and white supremacists.
2. APOLOGIZE to the American people for your words and actions that have betrayed the dignity and honor of the Office of the President and the provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America that prohibit discrimination. Your hateful and divisive rhetoric does NOT unify or inspire people. On the contrary, they bring out the worst from the American people.
After issuing a sincere apology, CHANGE, Mr. President, and live up to the honor and dignity of the office you are holding.
Our Founding Fathers stipulated the “The Want, Will, and Hopes of the People” of America in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Constitution, meanwhile says, as paraphrased:
“The Fifth Amendment has an explicit requirement that the Federal Government not deprive individuals of ‘life, liberty, or property,’ without due process of the law and an implicit guarantee that each person receive equal protection of the laws.”
“The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly prohibits states from violating an individual’s rights of due process and equal protection. Equal protection limits the State and Federal governments’ power to discriminate in their employment practices by treating employees, former employees, or job applicants unequally because of membership in a group, like a race, religion or sex. Due process protection requires that employees have a fair procedural process before they are terminated if the termination is related to a “liberty,” like the right to free speech, or a property interest.” (FindUSlaw.com)
3. TELL CONGRESS Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that it is OK to debate and vote on the bipartisan gun control law passed by the House, supported by both Democrats and a few Republicans.
This will NOT take away guns from people as the powerful and rich gun lobby group National Rifle Association has been misleading people about using scare tactics.
The legislation will just implement a common-sense regulation that will make sure guns will not go to the hands of mentally ill and criminal people, that the purchase, ownership, and continued ownership and use of guns will have to go through a stringent process. Also, assault rifles and high capacity magazines are weapons intended to be used in war zones, not by civilians. Ban these for civilian use.
These dangerous and powerful weapons have killed so many people in a few seconds in the mass shootings. We do not need those to fulfill the Second Amendment rights to protect ourselves.
It is about time President Trump and the Republicans in Congress serve the interests and well being of the American people they have sworn to serve and protect, and not bow down to the National Rifle Association that has been contributing millions and millions of dollars to their campaigns.
Can and will you do this, President Donald Trump, and be a true leader worthy of the honor of the Office of the President of the United States?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos16
