Trump shrugs at immigration law — here’s what he should have said



When NBC’s Kristen Welker asked President Trump last Sunday whether illegal aliens have due process rights, he hedged.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials,” Trump replied on “Meet the Press.”

That’s not even close to good enough. Trump should have responded clearly and forcefully: While everyone enjoys due process before being criminally punished, deportation is not punishment. It’s an administrative action that flows from national sovereignty.

Illegal aliens do not possess the same due process rights as citizens. They can make their case to immigration officials — but those officials retain full discretion to deny their request and carry out removal. We’re not jailing these people; they are free to return home on their own. If they refuse, we remove them — just like any homeowner would remove a trespasser.

The analogy is simple. If a burglar breaks into your home, you can’t torture or imprison him without a trial. But you absolutely can — and should — force him to leave.

That’s why deportation proceedings don’t come with government-funded lawyers. The law is clear: “In any removal proceedings before an immigration judge ... the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel.”

The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.

Trump’s hesitation creates the impression that illegal aliens do enjoy full due process under immigration law — but implementing it would just be too hard. That argument doesn’t persuade. The American people don’t want laws ignored simply because enforcing them is difficult.

Welker pushed further: “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

Trump replied: “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

But we should never confuse what the Supreme Court says with what the Constitution requires. The court has long recognized that immigration law operates under different standards. The power to exclude or remove aliens lies entirely with Congress and the executive branch, not the judiciary.

What the founders, Supreme Court, and Constitution say

The constitutional, statutory, and philosophical basis for removing aliens without full judicial due process is overwhelming. The historical record speaks for itself:

1. Gouverneur Morris, Constitutional Convention debates (1787):

“Every society from a great nation down to a club had the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted, there can be room for no complaint.”

2. William Rawle, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America” (2nd edition):

“In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people, and partake of this sovereignty are citizens, they alone can elect, and are capable of being elected to public offices, and of course they alone can exercise authority within the community: they possess an unqualified right to the enjoyment of property and personal immunity, they are bound to adhere to it in peace, to defend it in war, and to postpone the interests of all other countries to the affection which they ought to bear for their own.”

3. Chief Justice John Marshall, The Exchange v. McFaddon (1812):

“The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it deriving validity from an external source would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction. All exceptions, therefore, to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source.”

4. Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892):

“It is an accepted maxim of international law that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.”

5. Chae Chan Ping v. United States (1889):

“That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence. If it could not exclude aliens it would be to that extent subject to the control of another power.”

6. Kansas v. Colorado (1907):

“Self-preservation is the highest right and duty of a Nation.”

The right to deport is an extension of the right to exclude

7. Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893):

“The right of a nation to expel or deport foreigners who have not been naturalized, or taken any steps towards becoming citizens of the country, rests upon the same grounds, and is as absolute and unqualified as the right to prohibit and prevent their entrance into the country.”

8. Justice James Iredell, Charge to Grand Jury (1799):

“Any alien coming to this country must or ought to know, that this being an independent nation, it has all the rights concerning the removal of aliens which belong by the law of nations to any other; that while he remains in the country in the character of an alien, he can claim no other privilege than such as an alien is entitled to, and consequently, whatever [risk] he may incur in that capacity is incurred voluntarily, with the hope that in due time by his unexceptionable conduct, he may become a citizen of the United States.”

9. Emer de Vattel, “The Law of Nations” (1797):

“Every nation has the right to refuse to admit a foreigner into the country, when he cannot enter without putting the nation in evident danger, or doing it a manifest injury. ... Thus, also, it has a right to send them elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens; that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, in this respect, to follow the rules which prudence dictates.”

Courts have no jurisdiction to interfere

10. Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1895):

“The power of Congress to exclude aliens altogether from the United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may come to this country, and to have its declared policy in that regard enforced exclusively through executive officers, without judicial intervention, is settled by our previous adjudications.”

11. Knauff v. Shaughnessy(1950):

“The admission of aliens to this country is not a right, but a privilege, which is granted only upon such terms as the United States prescribes. … The decision to admit or to exclude an alien may be lawfully placed with the [p]resident, who may in turn delegate the carrying out of this function to a responsible executive officer. ... The action of the executive officer under such authority is final and conclusive. Whatever the rule may be concerning deportation of persons who have gained entry into the United States, it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.”

12. Fiallo v. Bell (1977):

“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that ‘over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over’ the admission of aliens.”

13. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952):

“We think that, in the present state of the world, it would be rash and irresponsible to reinterpret our fundamental law to deny or qualify the Government’s power of deportation. ... Reform in this field must be entrusted to the branches of the Government in control of our international relations and treatymaking powers. We hold that the Act is not invalid under the Due Process Clause.”

Due process does not guarantee entry or residency

14. Lem Moon Sing v. U.S. (1895):

“As to such persons [non-citizens wishing to remain in the U.S.], the decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by [C]ongress, are due process of law.”

15. Galvan v. Press(1954):

“Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government ... that the formulation of these policies is entrusted exclusively to Congress has become about as firmly imbedded ... as any aspect of our government.”

16. Justice Robert Jackson (dissenting), Shaughnessy v. Mezei (1953):

“Due process does not invest any alien with a right to enter the United States, nor confer on those admitted the right to remain against the national will.”

Deportation is not punishment

17. Turner v. Williams (1904):

“No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of Congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens. ... But to declare unlawful residence within the country to be an infamous crime, punishable by deprivation of liberty and property, would be to pass out of the sphere of constitutional legislation unless provision were made that the fact of guilt should first be established by a judicial trial.”

18. Fong Yue Ting v. U.S.(1893):

“The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment, in the sense in which that word is often applied. ... It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions.”

Trump never should have equivocated on immigration law — or deferred to his lawyers. The Constitution, the courts, America’s founders, and common sense all say the same thing: Noncitizens do not enjoy an absolute right to remain in the United States. Deportation does not violate due process because deportation is not punishment. It is the lawful exercise of sovereignty.

The United States must enforce its borders — not apologize for them.

I’m Tired Of Reading Conservative Books That Don’t Offer Any Real Solutions

Yuval Levin's latest book fails to offer any concrete solutions to the nation's problems.

Erase the Bible, lose the West — and that’s the point



The cultural revolution of the 1960s undermined every pillar of American identity, and public religion was no exception. Supreme Court rulings in 1962 and 1963 struck down state-led prayer and mandatory scripture reading in public schools. While these decisions didn’t explicitly ban biblical education as literature or cultural instruction, they effectively removed it from the classroom. Over time, institutional pressure and administrative caution eliminated nearly all engagement with the Bible in the public square.

As large-scale immigration introduced greater religious diversity, demands for a more “neutral” education further pushed cultural Christianity into the realm of the taboo. Christmas and Easter became “winter” and “spring” break. Schools reduced biblical references to passing mentions — if they acknowledged them at all. The result: a rootless, amnesiac society cut off from the spiritual and cultural traditions that once inspired greatness.

By removing the religion that shaped our national character, we’ve lost the ability to understand or transmit our own culture. This is no accident.

Humans remain narrative creatures. Even in an age obsessed with data and reason, we understand ourselves through stories. Every civilization has a set of core narratives that define its identity. These stories echo through its literature, art, science, and daily language. People imitate the archetypes they inherit — knowingly or not—so the stories a culture preserves shape its citizens’ behavior, values, and imagination.

For ancient Greece and Rome, Homer’s “Iliad” served as a civilizational anchor. For Western Christendom, that role belonged to the Bible.

As with all enduring societies, the Western canon both reflected and created its civilization. The canon includes the foundational works every educated citizen was once expected to know, at least in outline: “The Divine Comedy,” “Paradise Lost,” the plays of Shakespeare. But none of these are truly intelligible without biblical knowledge. These literary masterpieces do more than quote scripture — they shape theology itself, popularizing specific interpretations of Christian doctrine.

Art doesn’t just reflect a culture; it defines it.

The stories are everywhere: David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, Judas the betrayer, the unwelcome prophet, the good Samaritan, the sacrificial Christ. These archetypes saturate Western literature. Even works not explicitly Christian — like Shakespeare’s plays — reference scripture on nearly every page. And for directly inspired texts like Dante’s “Inferno,” biblical illiteracy makes the work incomprehensible.

Yet American legal doctrine now treats biblical ignorance as a virtue. Misreadings of the First Amendment have transformed cultural illiteracy into a legal mandate. Forget the Bible’s spiritual value — removing it from schools broke the chain of cultural transmission.

As a former public school history teacher, I saw this biblical and cultural illiteracy firsthand. I routinely had to explain the story of David and Goliath or the birth of Christ to 16-year-olds — just so they could understand the references in a historical speech or literary text. Students weren’t rejecting scripture. They had simply never heard it before.

Shakespeare and Dante still haunt English literature curricula, but only as lifeless relics. These works already challenge students. Strip out the biblical framework, and they become unreadable. That’s one reason woke activists now demand their removal altogether. Too white. Too Christian. Too patriarchal. But the push to obliterate the canon also masks a deeper failure: Today’s teachers often find these works unteachable — because students lack the cultural foundation to make sense of them.

Mass immigration has intensified the demand for multiculturalism and secularization. As the public square fills with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists, American institutions have stripped out the Christianity that once defined them. But by removing the religion that shaped our national character, we’ve lost the ability to understand or transmit our own culture.

This is no accident. It’s the only outcome multiculturalism has ever produced.

America now suffers from a full-blown identity crisis. If we hope to recover a coherent national identity, we must start with the Bible. Conservatives and Christians who want to revive the American tradition must demand — unapologetically — the return of scripture and prayer to public life.

These practices weren’t controversial for most of our history. The Constitution didn’t suddenly change because the left launched a cultural revolution. Students — even those who are secular or from foreign faiths — still need biblical literacy to understand the civilization they live in and the culture they’re supposedly assimilating into.

A general knowledge of the Bible is indispensable. Without it, American education remains incomplete — and a unified national culture remains impossible.

Pro-gun Texas? The large print giveth and the small print taketh away



Actions speak louder than words. Put your money where your mouth is. I’ll believe it when I see it. A few common phrases that describe one idea: It doesn’t matter what you say if you don’t act accordingly — a concept that Texas state officials do not seem to understand.

Texas claims to be a bastion of liberty in the United States. Texas also claims to be unabashedly pro-gun — a state where people are free to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. But the state’s actions show those claims are just words.

Texas talks about being pro-gun. But by its actions, Texas doesn’t care about gun rights.

In reality, Texas has several laws that prohibit individuals from carrying arms in certain locations. The most notable of these laws is a ban on carry in locations that derive 51% or more of their proceeds from the sale of alcohol. While some might immediately react that it seems like a good thing to keep guns out of bars, they miss the actual effect and application of the law.

First, the law applies to any and all businesses that derive 51% or more of their proceeds from the sale of alcohol — not just bars. This includes several other venues and restaurants within the state — places where people take their families and have a right to be able to protect them.

Second, this law prohibits everyone from carrying in those locations, even if you are not drinking at all. Texas has a different law that already makes it illegal to carry a firearm while drinking alcohol.

Want to visit a business that happens to sell more alcohol than food and make the conscious decision not to drink so that you can protect yourself, your loved ones, and your community? Too bad — Texas doesn’t care. Worse, Texas is broadcasting to every criminal that peaceable people will be unarmed in these places.

This blanket ban isn’t just ridiculous; it is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms in public. Clearly, no historical basis exists to let Texas authorities ban peaceable people from bearing their arms in these locations.

The most interesting part? Texas agrees.

Recently, the Firearms Policy Coalition and some of its members filed a lawsuit against Texas challenging this and a couple of its other carry bans. In what seemed like a positive development, Texas responded to the lawsuit by agreeing that it can’t ban bearing arms in these locations.

But actions speak louder than words.

In a recent turn of events, Texas filed a brief to kick the case out of court. Why? Standing. Texas claims that the plaintiffs lack the right to challenge the law. The kicker? Texas still goes on to admit that the law is unconstitutional.

Gun rights litigators are very familiar with this tactic to get a case dismissed. When a government knows it will lose on the merits, it will invoke standing to keep its law on the books. We see it all the time in California, New York, New Jersey, and other anti-gun states. But Texas? That’s a new one.

These legal gymnastics are astounding from a state that claims to be pro-gun. Texas admits that what it is doing is unconstitutional — that it is unlawfully restricting the rights of peaceable Texans — but it simply doesn’t want to give the court the opportunity to make that decision and strike these laws down. It’s actively and knowingly fighting to keep unconstitutional laws on the books.

Texas boasts about freedom. Texas talks about being pro-gun. But by its actions, Texas doesn’t care about gun rights. By its actions, Texas cares about stopping gun rights advocates from succeeding in court. Texas wants to eliminate a case that challenges laws it admits are unconstitutional.

It brings to mind another common phrase: With “friends” like these, who needs enemies?

Largest-Known Abortion Pill Study Shows They’re Way More Dangerous Than We Knew

'The real-world rate of serious adverse effects following mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times as high as' the drug label suggests.

Trump’s trade tactics echo founding-era common sense



Prominent voices on the left and within movement conservatism have argued that President Trump’s approach to foreign trade is strange, unorthodox, and even un-American. This is not surprising. After all, doctrinaire commitment to free trade — and doctrinaire distaste for protecting American industry — has been the dominant view among elites of both major political parties for at least a generation.

Against this backdrop, it is no wonder that Trump’s actions on trade appear as a wholly irrational disruption of a system that, according to our political elites, does not need to be discarded.

Hamilton would find it perfectly sensible of Trump to hold that other nations should give America something of value in exchange for access to our vast market.

This view of the matter, however, is based on an incomplete understanding of the American political tradition. Trump’s approach to trade policy has deep roots in American history, as we can see if we cast our gaze further back than we are accustomed to doing. It does not go too far to say that America’s founders would find Trump’s approach to international commerce perfectly intelligible and respectable.

The most obvious way to link President Trump to the founders is to invoke the justly celebrated name of Alexander Hamilton. The “Report on Manufactures,” Hamilton’s most famous state paper during his tenure as George Washington’s treasury secretary, laid out policy objectives that are essentially the same as those being defended by Trump and the members of his Cabinet who are responsible for trade policy.

It was necessary, Hamilton contended, to exert the government’s authority to promote American manufacturing to counteract the “artificial policy” of other nations that sought to exclude or disadvantage American goods. The ultimate aim of such a policy, he explained, was not the “vain project of selling everything and buying nothing” — it was instead to secure America’s vital national interests.

Hamilton argued that national “independence and security” are the “great objects” of all governments, thus requiring each country to “possess within itself all the essentials of national supply,” especially “the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defense.” Having such goods available within one’s own country, he continued, “is necessary to the perfection of the body politic, to the safety as well as the welfare of the society.”

No strange departure

It is hard to see much daylight between Hamiltonian trade principles and President Trump’s desire to have the products necessary to American security and prosperity built in the United States.

The nationalist character of Hamilton’s thinking about trade policy, moreover, did not emerge after the founding as some strange departure from its essential principles. Rather, such nationalism was evident earlier, especially in the prominent part Hamilton played in the debates over the ratification of the Constitution.

Writing in "The Federalist Papers," Hamilton observed that one of the great advantages of a union of states under one government was the power it would confer on the nation to “oblige foreign countries to bid against each other for the privileges of our markets.” Elsewhere in “The Federalist Papers,” Hamilton suggested that the restrictive trade policies nations sometimes pursue are not properly viewed as “injuries” but simply as “justifiable acts of independent sovereignties consulting a distinct interest.”

Hamilton, then, would find it perfectly sensible of President Trump to hold that other nations should be willing to give America something of value in exchange for access to our vast market. His arguments similarly anticipated Trump’s frequent remarks that while other nations will inevitably act in their own interest, they likewise must understand that we intend to act in our own interest as well.

The preceding argument is enough to show that Trump’s thinking about trade policy has venerable roots in the American political tradition. After all, who is more American than Alexander Hamilton?

We can go further, however. Trump’s approach broadly represents not just the Hamiltonian strain of American economic nationalism but the common sense of the founding-era generation itself. Indeed (and as I have observed elsewhere at greater length) the authority to regulate trade with foreign nations was included in the Constitution precisely for the purposes for which the Trump administration is now wielding it.

Regulating commerce was uncontroversial

In his massive and highly regarded "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” Joseph Story — John Marshall’s great colleague on the early Supreme Court — observed that the power to regulate foreign commerce was so obviously necessary in a complete and effective government that it was hardly even a matter of controversy at the Constitutional Convention.

Commerce, Story suggested, is important to “the prosperity of nations.” Nevertheless, the prosperity of American commerce had been thwarted by the restrictive policies of other nations during the time America was governed by the Articles of Confederation, which conferred on the government no authority to regulate America’s foreign trade.

On Story’s telling, before the Constitution was adopted, American commerce “was regulated by foreign nations with a single view to their own interests; and our disunited efforts to counteract their restrictions were rendered impotent by a want of combination.” Under the Constitution, however, the government of the United States has the power to control access to the entire American market and hence has the ability to retaliate against the excessively self-regarding trade policies of other nations.

The Trump administration is simply using this constitutional power in an attempt to secure an arrangement that is more mutually beneficial for the United States and our trading partners.

Just as the founders anticipated

Story’s understanding of these matters was by no means idiosyncratic or partisan. On the contrary, essentially the same views were expressed by James Madison, the “father of the Constitution.”

Writing to James Monroe in 1785, Madison expressed his personal wish that “no regulations of trade, that is to say, no restrictions or imposts whatever, were necessary.” “A perfect freedom” of trade, he continued, “is the system which would be my choice.” Nevertheless, he immediately added, for such a system to be “attainable, all other nations must concur in it.” And if any other nation imposed restrictions on American trade, Madison continued, it would be appropriate for America to “retort the distinction” — in other words, to impose retaliatory restrictions of its own. Indeed, Madison held that to question the propriety of such economic retaliation would be “an affront to every citizen who loves his country.”

Similarly, in the preface to his notes on the Constitutional Convention, Madison observed that the lack of a commerce power under the Articles of Confederation had “produced in foreign nations ... a monopolizing policy injurious to the trade of the U.S.” and further suggested that the appropriate response would be a “countervailing policy on the part of the U. States.” Such a policy became possible because the new Constitution included a power to regulate trade with foreign nations — the power the Trump administration is wielding to secure more advantageous trade relations for America, just as the founders anticipated.

None of this is to say that the founders would have approved of the specific steps the Trump administration has taken in the last several weeks. No one can pretend to know how they would apply their principles to the changed circumstances of the present. Nor is it to say that the founders would approve the extent to which the Congress has delegated its foreign commerce power to the president. It is to say, however, that Trump’s aims, and the kind of tools he is using to achieve them, would be unobjectionable to those who founded our nation and established our form of government.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

Blue State Bill Targeting ‘Misgendering’ Could Be Barreling Toward Free Speech Fight, Legal Experts Say

'Legislators are ignoring the lessons learned'

Mark Levin reveals what liberals DON’T want you to know about slavery and the Constitution



The left is the party that spawned critical race theory — the fundamentally flawed ideology that claims our constitutional framers were influenced by the racist norms of their time and therefore all the systems they created are tainted by those biases.

Mark Levin says it’s a shameful lie.

The truth is many of the framers despised slavery, but they had to make a hard deal with the slave states in order to form the United States. Without that union, there would have been no Civil War and no Abraham Lincoln to bring slavery to an end.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the delegates could not agree on the issue of slavery, so they left the issue to their children and grandchildren, Levin explains.

However, the framers knew that “a nation born out of the Declaration of Independence where all men were created equal” could not coexist with slavery.

Thomas Jefferson, who albeit owned slaves, tried to “put a provision in the Declaration of Independence about slavery,” but “it was withdrawn because they were in the middle of what started a revolutionary war for their own survival. ... They had to come together to fight the [British].”

Ultimately, the fight for independence from Britain and national unity took precedence over the issue of slavery until Abraham Lincoln was elected president and the Civil War thankfully put it to an end.

“[Abraham Lincoln] loved the Constitution of the United States, and he loved the Declaration, and he cited them repeatedly, especially the Declaration, as justification for fighting the [Civil] War to the end and abolishing slavery,” says Levin.

He wouldn’t have done that, though, if our founding documents were inherently pro-slavery and pro-white supremacy, as the left suggests they are.

To hear more of Levin’s analysis, including his take on the dangerous idea of nullification, a pre-Civil War movement that would have shattered the Republic, check out the clip above.

Want more from Mark Levin?

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SCOTUS’ Timidity Triggers Constitutional Crisis

The Supreme Court’s continuing failure to define lower courts' authority is wreaking havoc on the reputation of the courts — and our constitutional order.

Blaze News investigates: ​Democrats attack parents and parental rights in Colorado



Democratic lawmakers in the Colorado Senate are poised to pass a controversial piece of legislation that would grossly undermine parental rights and compel speech.

House Bill 1312 would, specifically, classify "misgendering" and "deadnaming" as child abuse; define both perceived offenses as discriminatory acts under state law; force schools to honor students' "chosen names" for any reason; and prohibit educational institutions from enforcing sex-based dress codes.

Democrats in the state legislature not only invoked House Rule 16 to kill debate before passing HB 1312 in a party-line vote on April 6 but smeared parental rights organizations critical of the legislation as hate groups on par with the Ku Klux Klan, indicating they were undeserving of consultation by virtue of their opposition.

Leftist lawmakers' latest attack on parental rights in the Centennial State might have largely gone under the radar had they not also viciously attacked those parents who expressed concern. The rhetorical attack has, however, helped draw attention to the legislative attack.

Blaze News reached out to some of those parental groups that Democrats have smeared as hateful and apparently want to ignore as well as to other critics of the "unlawful" legislation.

It appears that what leftists regard as "hatred" is actually an admixture of Americans' fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and their concern over further encroachments on parental rights.

As for the legislation, critics made clear that it will be challenged in the courts if ratified — although Focus on the Family culture and policy analyst Jeff Johnson indicated there was hope yet as of Thursday that the bill could die before reaching Democratic Gov. Jared Polis' desk.

Hatred, redefined

When Republican state Rep. Jarvis Caldwell raised the matter last week of whether non-LGBT parent groups were consulted ahead of the bill's passage in the state House, Rep. Yara Zokaie stated, "A well-stakeholdered bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups," adding, "We don't ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion."

'Colorado parents should be concerned.'

State Rep. Javier Mabrey later noted, "There's no reason to go to the table with people who are echoing the hateful rhetoric going around about the trans community."

Caldwell told Blaze News in a statement that "equating caring and concerned parents to 'hate groups' and the KKK is typical Democrat propaganda."

"Colorado parents should be concerned," continued Caldwell. "It's not hateful to be outraged by their agenda. We have crossed the Rubicon for parental rights in this state."

Blaze News reached out to Zokaie and Mabrey as well to Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie (D), the office of Gov. Jared Polis (D), and the Colorado House Democratic Caucus about the Democratic smear of parents across the state. They did not respond by deadline.

The El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty is among the groups critical of the legislation that were not consulted and then smeared as hateful by the Democratic lawmakers.

Chapter chair Kristy Davis clarified to Blaze News that Moms for Liberty's opposition to HB 1312 isn't rooted in hatred but rather in the U.S. Constitution. After all, the Democratic bill "infringes on parental rights and compels speech."

"Our advocacy for parental rights is rooted in the U.S. Constitution and should never be labeled as 'hate,'" wrote Davis. "We strive to ensure that all parents' rights are protected, and we oppose HB25-1312, which seeks to use legislation to separate parents from their children."

"Sections 2 and 3 [of HB 1312] represent government overreach by mandating the judicial system to apply transgender ideology in custody cases, while Sections 4, 5, and 6 force policies that limit parental authority over their children's names and gender expression," wrote Davis. "This legislation appears to be anti-family, pushing an agenda that appeals to only a fraction of Colorado taxpayers. It is harmful to both parents and children, creating unnecessary stress, fear, and separation and negatively impacting their mental health."

Davis, who has faced apparent threats online in recent months, noted that "parents have every right to be concerned about policies that affect their children's well-being and their ability to make decisions for their families."

'We hate that children are getting sterilized and mutilated.'

Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Culture Project and executive director at the Educational Freedom Institute, told Blaze News that Zokaie "let the mask slip."

"She detests parents who disagree with her so much that she doubled down on comparing them to the KKK," said DeAngelis. "Colorado Democrats are control freaks trying to force their insane ideology onto the rest of society. Colorado Democrats want to punish parents who don't accept the delusions of a small child."

"They're stomping on the rights of parents and hoping no one notices," added DeAngelis.

Alvin Lui is the president of the parental rights advocacy group Courage Is a Habit — a group that has furnished some parents in the state and elsewhere with tools to tackle gender ideology and has, along with Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education, been designated an "extremist group" by the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. Lui told Blaze News that his group has neutralized the "hate group" label in part by adopting it.

"I say, 'Absolutely we are a hate group. 100%. We hate what's happening to children. We hate the people that pass transgender trafficking bills, which is what this HB 1312 is, essentially. We hate that children are getting sterilized and mutilated before they can even get their driver's license,'" said Lui. "'We hate everything that you stand for. We want to run you out of schools. We want to run you out of any political office.'"

'Colorado Democrats just told Virginia's Terry McAuliffe "hold my beer."'

Regardless of what parent groups do with Democrats' "hate" label, its use in the first place is telling.

"What these assertions reveal is a troubling disconnect between some Democrats and the real, everyday concerns of parents," said Davis. "It feels as though they're dismissing the legitimate worries of moms and dads who simply want to have a say in their children's well-being. Parents are the ones who know their children best, and when they speak up, they should be heard — not labeled as radicals or adversaries."

Battle lost, war undecided

"Colorado Democrats just told Virginia's Terry McAuliffe 'hold my beer,'" DeAngelis told Blaze News. "Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, lost his race for governor after revealing he didn't want parents to have a say in their children's education."

McAuliffe was governor of Virginia from 2014 until 2018. He ran again for governor in 2021. Whereas his opponent, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), championed parental rights — particularly parents' prime authority over their children's education — the former Democratic governor signaled a desire for a difference balance of power.

During a gubernatorial debate in September 2021, McAuliffe stated, "I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision."

At the time, the battle over critical race theory and LGBT propaganda in the classroom was a hot-button issue for Virginia parents.

"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," added McAuliffe.

Youngkin handily beat the critic of parental authority and remains governor of the state.

With McAuliffe's defeat in mind, DeAngelis told Blaze News, "Colorado Republicans should follow Glenn Youngkin's playbook and capitalize on this issue. They need to fight back to rescue parents from socialist takeover."

Numerous Republican lawmakers in the state Senate — where they are outnumbered 23-12 — have indicated they will oppose the legislation, which as of April 9 had not been assigned to a committee.

In a statement shared with Blaze News, Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen (R) noted that "HB25-1312 undermines one of the most sacred and time-honored principles of our society: the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their values, beliefs, and faith."

"When government policies attempt to substitute the judgment of bureaucrats for that of parents, we risk eroding a foundational pillar of liberty and personal responsibility," added Lundeen.

'Colorado used to be very red.'

Lundeen insinuated that the legislation would not only undermine the "sacred right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children without unjust interference," but "pave the way for future intrusions into how families educate, discipline, or spiritually guide their children."

Lundeen vowed to "stand firmly" against the bill and comparable legislation.

While Republicans could, as DeAngelis suggested, capitalize on this issue, it will take time to gain ground in the state legislature.

Both Brittany Vessely, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, and Jeff Johnson of Focus on the Family separately told Blaze News that Colorado's political capture by leftists was decades in the making, orchestrated in part by a cabal of billionaires who poured billions of dollars into the state to strategically flip local districts.

"Colorado used to be very red," Vessely told Blaze News. "It was more of a libertarian state — very rancher-dominated."

"But [entrepreneur] Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and a couple others poured money into the state and flipped these districts," said Johnson. "Once Democrats had control, they passed legislation that appealed to the left, to radicals."

The legalization of marijuana, the promise of other forms of social deregulation, and the state's general leftward shift apparently drew multitudes of radicals to the state, especially from California.

"So there's just been, in the last 10 years specifically, a huge move from Colorado being very red to purple for a while to now being dominated with majorities of progressive Democrats in both chambers and an LGBTQ progressive governor and very progressive courts," said Vessely. "So we have a trifecta in Colorado in the legislation where parental rights are being completely violated."

'HB 1312 is going to end up in litigation.'

The disconnect between leftist lawmakers and traditional Coloradans has been enough to drive majorities in numerous counties to vote either to break away and form their own state, "North Colorado," or to become part of Wyoming.

For the time being, they are stuck with lawmakers who are keen to undermine parental rights; to force them to fund abortion; to bar health benefit insurance plans from denying or limiting coverage for sex-change mutilations; and to keep up the lies about transvestites' sexes even after death.

From Polis' desk to the courts

Opponents of HB 1312 do not presently have sufficient time to change the state of play politically; hence the ongoing discussions of legal action.

Colorado state Rep. Brandi Bradley (R), for instance, vowed to sue and "keep suing" if the bill succeeds, stating, "I've birthed five children" and "will protect them to the Nth degree."

Brittany Vessely told Blaze News that "HB 1312 is going to end up in litigation because it directly impedes upon the religious freedom of conscience and expression for all Coloradans across the state but especially for the faith-based community."

Vessely explained that the public accommodation section of HB 1312 requiring compliance with gender ideology-based speech codes refers to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act — the law at issue in the case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis decided by the Supreme Court in 2023 — which was amended in 2021 to add the terms "gender expression" and "gender identity" to statutes prohibiting discrimination against members of a protected class.

While there is a religious exemption in the state anti-discrimination law, Vessely indicated it really protects only places like parishes and church halls — not diocesan offices, not Catholic schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, or cemeteries.

"These are areas where a lot of our Catholic ministries are going to be directly impacted by the effects of this bill," said Vessely, adding that Christian publications could similarly be impacted.

Jeff Johnson suggested to Blaze News that HB 1312 is clearly unconstitutional and fit for a challenge, adding that he has never seen a piece of legislation "try to do so many things at once."

"So you have the attack on parents' rights, which is unconstitutional," said Johnson. "The Supreme Court has said over and over again that parents have the right to raise their children — they're the ones in charge of their nurture and care and education — and this bill basically usurps that and says, 'No, it's abusive if a parent doesn't go along with the child's sexual identity confusion.'"

Johnson noted that while the bill presently targets court decisions in custody cases, once so-called "deadnaming and misgendering" have been "defined as abusive in this realm, it would be pretty easy for regulations to follow along saying, 'Hey, if you're not affirming your child's sexual identity confusion, that's abusive in any case. And [Child Protective Services] could step in and start taking children away."

In addition to standing on shaky ground because of the abuse classification, Johnson said that HB 1312 is vulnerable to legal challenges both because it tells the court to ignore other states' court mandates regarding parenting and because "it also coerces speech, requiring schools and businesses and employees to agree to the idea that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man, and it forces people to use a person's 'chosen name' and pronouns rather than going by the biological sex."

'They're waking up to the agenda, and they're saying, "No."'

Courage Is a Habit's Lui suggested that besides legal challenges, Coloradans also have the choice of civil disobedience.

"They can arrest one or two people" for reality-affirming language, said Lui. "They're not going to arrest 1,000 people. They're not going to arrest 5,000 people for calling a man a man."

"It's not an easy answer once you get to this point," continued the parental rights advocate. "Once you make fear a habit, they keep pushing you until they've got you over a barrel. And that's why we always remind people: You got to make courage a habit."

Vesseley noted that while the pro-life cause is presently facing neglect, especially at the federal level, there is a "tremendous amount of momentum right now for the parents in those organizations that are fighting back against the LGBTQ narrative that's happening, especially in schools. We're seeing that across the nation."

Johnson suggested that Democrats have unwittingly awoken the sleeping giant by "trying to get every area of society in Colorado to comply with this agenda."

"I don't know if the pushback is from [the transgender agenda] or if it's the parental rights issue, but I think people are starting to wake up and say, 'A man can't become a woman, a boy can't become a girl, and vice versa.' They're waking up to the agenda, and they're saying, 'No, this is harmful to children and adults, and you can't force me to go along with this,'" said Johnson.

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