The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. Donald Trump, the current President, has said he brought back free speech to America, I disagree.
During his time in office, less than 100 days at the time of writing this, Trump has attacked the press. He attacks the credibility and the independence of people who go against him. He has threatened to use the government as a weapon against media professionals with a different opinion than him and successfully followed through with it. Trump banned The Associated Press from entering the White House press room.
Not only did he ban people and spew out insult after insult, but he also cut grants and funding to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM.) He did not stop there though; he also placed many of the reporters on leave. This leaves not only the United States without reliable information but the rest of the world. Leaving an opening for misinformation to be spread by other countries.
The USAGM has thousands of reporters all working to give us reliable information. Many of them are in the United States on work visas and you may have guessed it they are in fact at risk of deportation. Why? Trump does not like the information they release. Right now, there are 15 reporters at severe risk of being arrested and eventually deported.
Rümeysa Öztürk is a Turkish PhD student here in the United States legally on a student visa. She was recently denied bail by a US immigration judge. You may be thinking that obviously she is a horrible criminal who deserves to be detained because that is who Trump said he was deporting, criminals. Criminals, not students who co-author an op-ed at their university. Öztürk simply wrote about something she believed in, and she is still being detained.
Another big attack on the First Amendment was his team removing more than 8,000 US government web pages. This leaves not only journalists but the public without reliable information.
This is only a brief example of Trumps attack on our constitutional right of freedom of speech. I would encourage everyone, no matter what “side” you are on, to please educate yourself on why this is bad. None of this should be happening.
