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When formulating and analyzing law in the United States, the intentions of the founding fathers of our nation is considered a focal point of significance. Frequently, our laws are revised when we find they are not consistent with the founding fathers intentions, as we ascertain the basis upon which we have erected our government and by which we hold it legitimate is not in line with the conduct we are displaying as a peoples. This, we can see, is commonly carried out with the Supreme Court putting forth amendments to the Constitution and the law books changing their decrees, often by legislation passed by Congress. A prime illustration of this is the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which stated the ruling that separate but equal is not equal and outlawed discrimination related to race, color, religion, gender, or national origin, respectively.

The very integral truths that the founding fathers declared were self-evident and the basis for establishing the United States of America in the first place are that all people are “created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers go on to proclaim that any given government is established specifically to institute the role of protecting these God-given rights. Given the fact that this document specifically stated that the infringement of these rights were the purpose behind the colonies’ sedition from the United Kingdom, it goes to reason that our fundamental bearing as a nation must be embedded in it, that it even supersedes the Constitution as a document outlining the basis of governance in our nation, seeing as the Bill of Rights was a document drafted to actualize what the Declaration of Independence aimed to do, namely, to set in motion a nation that was just and free.

In delivering the opinion of Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren proclaimed that the reason behind the court’s ruling was based on an interpretation of human rights, broadly taken. She said, “We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” The basis of her decision invokes the call that all people are created equal, the bedrock for our nation’s laws that the founding fathers put into effect.

It wasn’t until about 100 years into our nation’s history that the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution was ratified which stipulated all people born within the territorial region of the nation are granted equal protection under law. It goes without saying that all people should be given equal protection under law— this is implied in the statement that we are all created equal. But the specification that one must be born inside the United States of America to be given this basic human right puts a limitation on what the founding fathers established in the Declaration of Independence.

It is self-evident that all people are created equal and therefore all people should be provided equal treatment under law. All people, not just those born in the U.S., should be provided the fundamental rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as well. This is not a point that needs to be deliberated upon, since, we as a people in the United States of America, view it to be a self-evident truth.

In a future epoch, people will look back at our country today and wonder how we could act like such barbarians in regard to the way we have been approaching immigration policy.

To hold a person in detention merely based upon that person’s citizenship status effectively denies her or him each of those aforementioned God-given rights. This, as the Declaration of Independence makes clear, is antithetical to the call to just governance.

Moreover, the right to move freely throughout the nation is not only stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights delivered by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, it also was legislated as an imperative right in the Supreme Court case of Kent vs. Dulles in 1958. Why is it that non-U.S. citizens are not afforded the right to move freely in our nation, then? Is it not true that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on national origin? Yet, our courts and our executive branch are using national origin as a basis of discrimination when applying the law.

As the human family has grown more civilized and understanding of all the different elements that constitute our Earthly existence, we have become more empathetic to our neighbors and have come to treat each other with greater kindness and love. This is manifested by our gradual adoption of universal policies such as freedom ensured to all people, suffrage for all people, enhancement in democratic practices, denouncement of aggression as a means to settle disputes between nation-states, and a monotheistic vision of the universe that emphasizes the necessity to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In terms of this last item, which will be recognized as the two greatest commandments as spoken by Jesus Christ, we are moving toward a world in which there is greater harmony of religion, a sense of syncretism becoming more established in the world’s great faiths, and with it, people have become more akin to the likeness of what we hope to expect of loving people. There is no question we are on a teleologically bound path toward ubiquitous peace and great, overarching love between all people.

With this advancement in human civilization, we have become a more tightly knit global community, and in that mold, we have developed an integral charter of what we have come to consider essential rights all people have. The General Assembly of the United Nations instituted this enumeration of essential rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In order to be good, responsible stewards of Mother Earth, a requirement is that we all uphold, or at the bare minimum strive our very best to uphold, these essential rights. In the preamble of the document, it is stated that protecting the human rights listed therein is the basis for “freedom, justice and peace in the world” and that in instances when these rights have not been adhered to, we have witnessed “barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.” These observations provide credence to the notion that as we continue on that teleologically bound path toward ubiquitous peace and great, overarching love between all people, we must defend the tenants of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at any cost.

“Article 13

“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. 

“2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

It is necessary to allow people the right to leave any country, and if you happen to be the country to the north of a given nation, or to the south, for that matter, it is your duty to enable freedom of movement into your country in order to ensure that Article 13, Section 2 is adhered to. Once a person enters a country, then that person is allowed to move freely throughout it. This is voiced in Section 1 of Article 13.

And yet, over 30,000 people are locked in immigration detention facilities here in the United States. This is egregious by every measure and is a statistic that is horrifying to any citizen who is living with her or his freedom held firm, not even comparable to the level of horror those prisoners are currently actually facing.

It has been said that the people who are being detained represent a threat to our country’s safety, but the truth is that by locking up thousands upon thousands of people without providing due process or giving them knowledge about what is even happening to them, we are not showing an attitude of compassion as a people and, by doing that, we are making more people globally view our nation with an underlying view of resentment. On top of that, we are not adhering to the charter of which we were a signatory in the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and by disregarding our international commitments, we are making the rest of the world see us without as much trust. This makes them less willing to cooperate with us and in general creates more friction between our country and others and makes the world and our country more perilous.

These have been some of the reasons for why all immigrants held in detention should be freed.  In this essay I haven’t even begun to voice the extent of the rationale for why, though. The world belongs to God. In it, all people are given the right to live life in a way that is good and wise and if we do not allow them to live life in a way that is good and wise, we are preventing them from their fundamental liberty to serve, worship, and praise God in a manner that is appropriate to them. This act of putting immigrants in detention centers, then, is against the underlying reason for living as it is an obstacle to people doing what they can to serve, worship, and praise the Lord, Jesus Christ. In that sense, the United States of America is violating global sovereignty.

by Ryan Ventriloquist