By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor, Class of 2015

(Josh is a 2015 graduate of Jonathan Law. His political commentaries will be featured on The Advocate Online periodically during the school year.)

The process of selecting presidential candidates has always been a long one that starts with a hot summer in Iowa and New Hampshire where the candidates of the parties appeal to early primary voters and delegates. It is a democratic process that is not seated, but is instead open to different members of the party and different special interest groups with their own agendas and goals. The final part of this grueling process – vote both candidates and voters – is for the party to finally get enough delegates for nomination at the summer convection a few months before the November election.

What makes this year’s campaign even more absurd is Donald Trump’s entry into the race.

Trump is an embarrassment to the political system wand a mockery of American politics, open to strong ridicule at home and to the international community. What are his policy proposals? Does he even have any policy proposals? Oh, right, he has one: an immigration plan.

But let us examine his plan one step at a time.

Trump’s insane proposal would end birthright citizenship and build fence around the southern border of the United States and Mexico and it would deport tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants and children who were born in the United States. Trump may have a detailed plan, but it lacks in morals or humanity and could never even be carried out. It just plays on the worst fears of people’s odd hatred of immigrants.

It is inhumane to deport tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. It is inhumane to take children out of schools and raid the business of families when all they have ever known is America – a country of immigrants since the days when it was colonized, and later broke away to form a new nation.

More importantly, why have Republicans become so obsessed with securing the border? There are so many more important issues then securing the border, such as the national debt and tax reform. In a truly free society, a pure libertarian society, there would be open borders so individuals can freely associate with one another. The closing of borders violates the fundamental human right to movement and the fundamental human right to trade through mutual consent. If individuals are crossing the border internationally and are not harming individuals’ private property, there should be no restrictions.

Closed borders restricts the right of free trade because it prevents individuals from coming into this country who are willing to work, and it  prevents immigrants from coming here who can create new and lager business opportunities. Many of them already have.

Trump’s ideas represent a contraindication of liberty. Trump also avoids facts when presenting any of his ideas. He uses demagogy about immigrants invading this country, but his arguments are filled with lies. The facts are that there are fewer undocumented immigrants coming across the United States in recent years. Many immigrants aren’t even coming from Mexico, yet he continues to use the Mexican people as scapegoats.

Trump and his cult followers probably won’t even look at this information because they only want to see their own set of so-called “facts.” The Pew Research Center has estimated there were 11.2 undocumented immigrants in the United States in 2012. That is down from 12.2 million in 2007. There has been no substantial increase in undocumented immigrants since 2009.

Another contentious issue raised by Trump, which us untrue, is that immigrants commit more crime and violence than natural born Americans. This, again, plays on people’s worst fears. He claims these crimes and murders are being committed by undocumented immigrants, but the rhetoric is not true.

The reality is that native born citizens are more likely to commit violent crimes then undocumented immigrants and are more likely to be behind bars as well.  Between 1990 and 2013 those born in the United States increased from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent. That same year the number of undocumented immigrants increased from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.  During that same period violent crime declined as a whole, according to data from the FBI, which says violent crime declined 48 percent. The propaganda about immigrants comes mostly from fear of the unknown.

According to the American Immigration Council there are 1.6 percent of immigrant males between the ages of 18 and 39 that are incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent of native born Americans. Incarceration rates among Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans without a high school diploma are lower than those among natives in the United States without a high school diploma. In 2010, less-educated native-born men 18 to 39 had an incarceration rate of 10.7 percent. This is more than triple the incarceration rate among foreign-born Mexicans, and five time times the incarceration rate among foreign born Salvadorans and Guatemalans

It’s time Trump acknowledged the actual numbers.

What about Trump’s idea for a massive wall? Who can be against building a massive wall to prevent illegal imagination and to protect the rule of law? The problem is that it is not as practical as Trump makes it out to be. He loves to talk about building a massive wall and calling it the “Trump Wall.”  The problem is that it makes no practical or economic sense. Not once does he put out a plan to pay for it. In fact, Trump does not even include a proposal of how he would enact his massive wall. Building such a wall would not be as cheap as Donald Trump would like have people believe. It would cost billions of dollars and Trump has not detailed where those funds would come from. This is also a very dangerous idea because the very same wall that can prevent people from freely moving into the country can also prevent individuals from freely moving out of the country as well.

Trump’s plain to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants who have come here through no fault of their own is repugnant and unscrupulous. It not only shows a lack of morals on Trump’s part, but also a lack of common sense and practicality. This idea is unpractical because there is no plan on how Trump would end birthright citizenship, and how he would make up for the cost and lost revenues of the undocumented immigrants who are working and have businesses in the United States. With all of Donald Trump’s anger and rhetoric, can he really get this proposal to be taken seriously? Did it ever occur to Trump that he just might need a constitutional amendment since the fourteenth amendment makes very clear that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the States of where they reside.”

So what is Donald Trump’s “big idea” to make America great again? His big idea is to deport 11.5 million undocumented immigrants when the only flag they have known is the flag of the red, white, and blue. Trump can try all he wants to use the politics of fear and propaganda about immigrants being rapist and murders. The truth is these are the same individuals who look after our kids. These are our fellow students who have pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States their entire lives. These are our fellow neighbors and our friends and they are not drug dealers or murders, but are just Americans – and many of them are more patriotic then those on both extremes of the political spectrum.

(Some information courtesy fivethirtyeight.com, pewhispanic.org, americanimmigrationcouncil.org, and libertarianism.org)