Part 1
The direction by the President of the United States towards agents of the TSA to scrutinize all citizens of Moldova as they travel around the United States is in clear violation of the set out principles within the constitution. The decision to use ethnicity as a critical avenue through which to profile individuals that are likely to act against the expectations of the law is unjustified under the Fourteenth Amendment. According to Singer (2007), the Fourteenth Amendment seeks to create a justification that state officials must have probable cause, which would serve as a justification for searches and seizures. However, the directive by the president seeks to go against this expectation considering that it creates an unjustified approach towards ensuring that citizens of Moldova are targeted based on their country of origin. That serves to suggest that the directive by the president does not have any legal framework that would justify the expected outcomes.
Singer (2007) also takes note of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14 th Amendment arguing that it seeks to ensure that no government agent would be involved in a purposefully discriminatory policy regardless of the relief granted. In this case, it is clear that the President of the United States has put in place a policy that seeks to create an avenue through which to support racial profiling. That means that it is much more likely for government agents to use the aspect of race as one of the critical determinants of their profiling for persons from Moldova. Consequently, this means that the directive by the president ought to be considered as having gone beyond the legal principles set out within the constitution touching on the protection of every individual’s rights and freedoms.
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The idea of using racial profiling as a law enforcement tool fails to create the expected standards that would seek to build on a basis through which the security agencies would be able to mitigate the security risks associated with threats of terrorism. Bullock, Coppola, & Haddow (2012) consider the context of mitigation as part of providing “value to the American people by creating safer communities and reducing the loss of life and property” (p.243). By engaging in an approach that is directed towards racial profiling of the citizens from Moldova, the most likely outcome is that this would fail to meet the mitigation strategies. Instead, this would seek to create a must more resistive environment considering that the citizens from Moldova, including those that are United States citizens, may not be willing to work with the security agencies as a way of dealing with the threats.
The issue of racial profiling of the citizens from Moldova further extends a problem that the United States has been facing concerning lack of a justified approach through which to ensure that all people are protected and respected equally. Singer (2007) points to an exciting fact suggesting that, "post-9/11 polls revealed that, although the majority of Americans believe that police and the criminal justice system respect the rights of all people in general, the public believes some racial groups' civil rights receive more respect than others” (p.300). That serves as a justification for the need for the president and the government to work towards ensuring that the security measures that are undertaken fall within the confines of the law. The president ought to consider the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Moldova before making a justification on the need for having to create such a resolution.
Part 2
In my opinion, immigration reform is a necessary approach through which to ensure that the United States is in a position that would allow it to protect itself from external threats. However, I tend to believe that the reforms ought to be undertaken in a manner that is not only justified but also seeks to protect the rights and freedoms of the immigrants. The need for immigration reform can be seen from a recent increase in the number of attacks undertaken by immigrants, especially those holding K-1 visas. Scott (2016) takes note of the fact that the United States government finds itself in a situation where it is expected to take proactive measures in dealing with immigration as one of the ways through which to protect the country from external attacks.
An example of a reform undertaken as part of the immigration laws was a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives that sought “to change the program and require visitors who have also visited Iraq or Syria in the previous five years to obtain a visa to enter the U.S.” (Scott, 2016, p.301). The need for having to establish such changes is to create a front through which the government would be able to mitigate possible external risks. On the question of whether immigration reform ought to be considered a Homeland Security priority, I would argue that indeed it ought to be taken as a priority. That arises from the fact that most of the threats that the country faces are obvious meaning that adoption of immigration reform would work towards reducing the likelihood of such risks. Consequently, this serves as a clear indication of the need for having to consider immigration reform as a Homeland Security priority.
References
Bullock, J., Coppola, D. P., & Haddow, G. (2012). Homeland Security: The Essentials . Elsevier Science & Technology.
Scott, T. (2016). Female terrorists: a dangerous blind spot for the United States Government. U. Md. LJ Race, Religion, Gender & Class , 16 , 287.
Singer, R. (2007). Race IPSA-Racial Profiling, Terrorism, and the Future. DePaul J. Soc. Just. , 1 , 293.
