No Kings

Susan Estrich on Jun 14, 2025

What does it say when Alex Padilla, a sitting member of the United States Senate, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, is wrestled to the ground and handcuffed like a common criminal?

Not a rapist, not a murderer, but a member of the United States Senate.

It says no one with brown skin is safe from Kristi Noem's goons.

Is that the message the Trump administration wants to send to Hispanics in this country?

Have we replaced the much-hated by Trumpers "diversity, equity and inclusion" with old-fashioned racism? That is how it looks and feels.

President Donald Trump talks big about getting rid of the murderers and rapists who former President Joe Biden let across the border. They should have warrants with the names of those people on them, instead of lining up all the men with brown skin at car washes across LA and taking them to unknown destinations, instead of showing up at Home Depot and Ralph's, leaving law-abiding neighbors afraid to shop for groceries or attend their children's school graduations.

And who do Trump and his acolytes blame for this reign of terror they are visiting on us? They blame Biden, of course. When things go right, it's Trump who takes credit. When things go wrong, and they are going very wrong right now, they blame Biden.

On June 4, 2024, Biden took executive action to close the Southern border to asylum seekers; under the Biden policy, as explained by senior administration officials at the time, "individuals who cross the southern border unlawfully or without authorization will generally be ineligible for asylum, absent exceptionally compelling circumstances." Under the Biden policy, migrants who don't meet the requirement of having a "credible fear" when they apply for asylum are immediately removable. The flood of immigrants across the border, if that's what you choose to call it, is over.

It is a fair criticism of Biden that he should have taken action earlier. It is not a fair criticism that his failings justify sending in the National Guard and the marines -- against the wishes of the governor of California, who is in charge of the Guard -- to terrorize our community. These young men and women did not sign up so they could manhandle and arrest their nannies and gardeners.

"Fellow immigrants," President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously began his address to the Daughters of the American Revolution at another time when anti-immigrant sentiment was a growing problem in this country. With the exception of Native Americans (hardly the model of who has been fairly treated), we are all immigrants, either directly or as the children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants. They came to this country to flee a king, to survive, to build a better life in a country that followed the rule of law.

In our country, due process is a fundamental right of all, not just of those who were born here. It is what we expect -- often wrongly -- when we travel abroad. It is what makes America different from other countries in the world, countries that hold Americans in prisons without the process that should be due when government deprives people of their liberty. We are aghast when that happens to us abroad. We should be just as appalled when it happens, as it is right now, in our own country.

Have we reached the point of a constitutional crisis yet? Do we already have a president who tries to rule like a king?

We do. The only thing that stands against the would-be monarch is not the Congress, which under Republicans has failed miserably to take a stand against the king's excesses or to hold his unqualified minions responsible, but the courts. Our democracy is in the hands of the brave men and women on the bench, who dare to say no to the man who would be king. We protest in support of them.

========

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.