News
Hamilton alumna speaks to College’s immigration policy
By Madeleine Maher’18
February 9, 2017
As promised in President David Wippman’s Jan. 30 email, Immigration Attorney Helen Konrad ’84 facilitated an informational summary of events followed by a question and answer session regarding President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order and Immigration Ban. Konrad, a director at immigration practice group McCandish Holton, P.C., cleared up some of the confusion around where the nation’s immigration policies currently stand.
“I don’t recall any time when legal issues were so prominent in the news since Watergate,” claimed Konrad, who expertly translated the news around Trump’s order from difficult “legalese” into terms that the general public could understand.
To start off her info-packed session, Konrad laid out the whats, hows and whys of events leading up to the order. After President Trump took office, he was tasked with figuring out how to legally follow through with the unconstitutional promises made during his campaign. His solution? Draft several executive orders depicting immigrants as the villainous downfalls of economic prosperity. Following his orders for “The Wall” and “Interior Enforcement Increase,” Trump signed an executive order “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” The order imposed a travel and entry ban on anyone “from” the Muslim majority countries of Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen at 4:45 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27.
Konrad then explained why the ban would initially have a 90-day impact. Trump demanded that, within the first 30 days following the order, the government had to gather a list of every country that fails to comply with the United States’ requests for information. If these nations do not provide Trump with his requested information, they will get added to the list of banned countries. The order also pledged to cut the quota for Syrian refugees in the United States and pledged to give precedence to immigrants of “religious minority” from Muslim majority countries.
If you are grappling with what it means to be “from” one of these seven countries, you are not alone. Konrad explained that Trump failed to send a copy of the order to the Department of Homeland Security the U.S. Citizenship Immigration Service, and the Department of State before he headed home for the weekend. Once chaos ensued in airports across the country, the White House clarified that Trump wanted “from” to stretch “as far as it can possibly go and wider.” In other words, he wanted visitors, green card holders and visa holders alike to get stopped, detained and sent back to where they originally flew out of (whether or not that was their home country).
At this point in her lecture, Konrad made one thing abundantly clear: as a federal law, the Executive Order implements uniform immigration laws in every state. With that in mind, the states began brainstorming ways to lift the ban.
Amidst the confusion that had taken over airports, “the branches that don’t answer to the crazy man,” finally stepped in. The ACLU, congressional members and local attorneys flocked to airports around the country and issued emergency motions to lift the ban one person at a time. The first block of the ban came out of New York State on Jan. 28. Later that same night, Boston did one better and placed a hold on the Executive Order at Logan International Airport for seven days. The Department of State fired back with an order to cancel the visas of anyone and everyone who fell subject to the order, whether they are on U.S. soil or not. They also issued a 90-day hold on visa applications from any of the seven countries.
At this, Washington State Solicitor General Noah Purcell put his foot down. He drafted a letter to Attorney Generals across the country imploring that they stand together and fight the unconstitutional immigration ban at the state level. Despite the letter’s underwhelming response, Purcell did not give up. As a man who knows his way around Supreme Court issues, Purcell headed to the nation’s capital and mapped out how and why Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. First and foremost, the order discourages freedom of religion by giving precedence to Christian immigrants from the seven countries. Secondly, the order violates due process and strips humans of their property right by taking away their visas and greencards.
Purcell’s arguments captured the attention of the Minnesota State Court, who several days later, ruled a ban on the visa cancellation order, as the order caused irreparable harm to the state by removing many state employees, particularly in their universities. As Konrad reminded us time and time again throughout the presentation, executive orders must be implemented uniformly across states in order to stand, so the ruling put a hold on the executive order across the country.
With increasingly passionate speech, Konrad explained that the movement for banning the visa cancellation order picked up traction across several states. The presidential administration called for an appeal of the decision to block the order. Now in the 9th Circuit, the case remains over whether or not it is constitutional for President Trump to issue an order that cannot be rebuked by individual states. If the 9th Circuit rules in favor of appeal, the case will most likely make its way to the Supreme Court.
Konrad’s impassioned gestures and fiery whit made the fact-packed 45 minutes fly by. While her disproval of Trump and his policies snuck into her tone and delivery, she did not let her personal political views skew the facts. To wrap up the hour, Konrad answered questions about international student employment after college, traveling with a visa and navigating precarious political discussion in public settings.
In her final few minutes, she shared an anecdote about a man from Syria with whom she worked in the first few days following the executive order. While walking down the streets of Georgetown, the man was approached by a stranger and slapped across the face. Rather than retaliate in fear, he decided to get to know the stranger and to let the stranger get to know him. In broken English, he explained to Konrad; “I did not want this man to hurt me again, so I made him my best friend.”