Wednesday’s CBS Mornings Plus showed its thoughts on whether borders and citizenship actually mean anything as they dedicated a segment to a Columbia University Law professor informing illegal immigrants to cheer up and not as fearful because everyone enjoys the same rights under the Constitution, no matter whether you immigrated legally, we’re born in this country, or came illegally at anytime under any pretense.
“Recent deportations have fueled fear, uncertainty, and misinformation around traveling. We’ll talk to an expert so you know the facts and your rights,” featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers boasted in the “Eye Opener,” making it seem like CBS is concerned with giving safe harbor to illegal immigrants.
No word on whether CBS journalists will help them evade Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) or do future segments fawning over helping illegal aliens avoid capture like The Washington Post did.
Co-host Adriana Diaz set up the interview with Columbia’s Elora Mukherjee by saying this week’s CBS News Confirmed segment would discuss “travel and immigration, sifting through so called advice online to get to the truth about your rights” since “videos have gone viral on social media talking about experiences going through U.S. Customs.”
Asked “what should eveyrone know,” Mukherjee said she had been “inundated with calls from students, scholars, researchers, ordinary people who are wondering how to stay safe in this very difficult and unprecedented moment,” wondering if their social media posts or political activities would put them in danger.
Mukherjee more or less explained those concerned shouldn’t be and continue going about their lives, holding whatever views they so choose:
In terms of what everyone should know, people should know that the U.S. Constitution applies to them regardless of their immigration status. Everyone has a right to remain silent, regardless of immigration status, if they’re approached by law enforcement officers or immigration officers. The First Amendment protects the speech of all people regardless of their immigration status. And due process applies to people who are lawful permanent residents and visa holders to a certain extent. So people should know that they should be taking steps to stay safe and that the U.S. Constitution does apply.
Duthiers shifted to green card and long-term visa holders (i.e. those “in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen”) and asked again for Mukherjee to reiterate: “Your point being that the U.S. Constitution covers everybody.”
After saying “yes,” she added the caveat one’s “level of due process...may depend on the length of time that they’ve been in the United States” with the particular dividing line being two years with those above that line safer in demanding “a hearing before they are subject to deportation.”
The conversation then turned to political speech with Mukherjee unsurprisingly defending the anti-Semitic mobs that took over her university (click “expand”):
DIAZ: So, professor, you’re talking about people’s due process rights, their First Amendment rights. But we are seeing in the news students, including former students at Columbia, who are being detained and their lawyers are saying it’s unlawfully, it’s — it’s in violation of their constitutional rights. What should people make of what you’re saying people’s rights are? And then what they’re seeing happening.
MUKHERJEE: The executive branch right now is pushing the bounds of executive power beyond that, that is allowed by the U.S. Constitution pushing beyond the checks and balances system that is set up by our laws and our constitutional democracy. We are at a moment that is unprecedented in terms of the executive branch testing the limits of the judiciary. And in the coming days and weeks, we will see whether and to what extent the executive branch respects the law that is set forth by the federal courts.
Before thanking Mukherjee for having given viewers “really important information,” Duthiers fretted “Customs and Border Protection agents do have the right to search your phone if they ask you when you’re coming into the United States” and wondered if those entering the U.S. should wipe their social media or fall back on the First Amendment.
Mukherjee provided one last dose of assurance that “[t]he First Amendment protects everyone who is within the United States” although “[i]t’s more complicated at ports of entry” such as airports.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from April 9, click here.
