huffpost.com
Government Shutdown Enters Week 2 As Democrats Spar With GOP Over Health Care
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JUST SAYING
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
Where Are the Lawsuits?
Why aren’t citizen groups in Portland, Chicago, and beyond pooling their resources to sue the Department of Justice and ICE officials?
We keep hearing about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But those words aren’t in the Constitution—they belong to Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. The Constitution speaks more bluntly: liberty, due process, equal protection.
The Fifth Amendment says no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Fourteenth Amendment forces states to honor the same, guaranteeing “equal protection of the laws.”
Federal judges have already scolded Trump for sending military troops into American cities without constitutional authority. These weren’t just shows of force. Armored men patrolling civilian streets shatter the fabric of daily life. They sow fear. They weaken public health and safety. They damage local economies. Neighborhoods become combat zones, and residents are collateral damage.
And lawsuits matter for another reason: discovery. Litigation pries open the files—emails, videos, records, directives—the players who orchestrated this national nightmare.
This is not “law and order.” It is the grotesque disruption of liberty itself. And it’s happening here, at home, under the blessing of executive power the Constitution never granted.
So again—where are the lawsuits? Where are the citizen coalitions demanding that the courts rein in this abuse?
The Constitution does not enforce itself. We do.