Tuesday on CNN’s “At This Hour,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) reacted to the Supreme Court upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban on several majority Muslim nations.
Ellison compared the decision to Dred Scott v. Sandford, that ruled slaves had no standing to sue in federal court. The Fourteenth Amendment overturned Dred Scott by granting citizenship, regardless of color, to all people born in the United States.
Ellison said, “All I can say is the people who believe in dignity of all people, who believe in freedom of faith, freedom of religion in America, we’re not going to stop fighting. In fact this will enliven us, inspire us to push even further and harder to establish the dignity of all people in this country. We’re not daunted here. We’re going to keep on pressing. It just proves one thing, if you steal and rip off a Supreme Court justice, then you can try to jam any kind of nasty racist ugly policy you can down the throats of the American people.”
He continued, “Let me tell you this, Our country has gone through some ugly days. I mean, the Supreme Court in 1850 said it was okay to own a black person. That’s the Dred Scott decision . That decision hit the dustbin of history, so did Plessy v. Ferguson, so did Korematsu. I’m telling you, discrimination and racism will never win in the end. So we’re just — we’re fired up and pushing forward.”
He added, “It is not within the president’s authority to discrimination on the basis of religion. It simply isn’t. The fact that he slapped a few language — pieces of language on there and threw in a few other countries as an afterthought doesn’t correct the fundamental and original flaw. The president said that in one of the his opening statements. He wanted a complete and total ban on Muslim entry into the country. He reaffirmed that position multiple times. The fact that he comes out with an initial ban and then throws a throws a few countries in there and says it’s about — it does not change the fact that this is his intend, what he wants to do, and the Supreme Court majority ignoring that is simply ignores precedent, ignoring the truth of what the president was trying to do.”
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