New Bill Would Give Marco Rubio “Thought Police” Power to Revoke U.S. Passports

I’m an American citizen living abroad in Prague during the last three decades, and have held a passport for over fifty years. I’m also a writer of political commentary, all of which is available on my jim-freeman.com website. Aside from over two-thousand essays (in ten volumes), I’ve published three novels, two non-fiction books, and three volumes of poetry.

You may not know me. In fact, I’d be surprised if you do. But, with AI’s ability to scan text, my writing may be known to others who may be unfriendly to my opinions.

But my passport may be revoked. Surely not, Jim. How could that happen?

If H.R. 5300 passes, the “Department of State Policy Provisions Act,” introduced in this 119th Congress. Passport revocation is in Section 226 of that bill. Hard to believe, but many things are difficult to comprehend these days, as republican (with a small r) democracy is under fire. Personally, I will wait until this current presidency is over before I risk coming home for a visit.

In this unusual time in the history of American presidencies, many things have been decreed illegal by our current man in the Oval Office.

Untrusting of the tripartite system of American government, he imposes his edicts by executive orders, an end-around to congressional approvals, two-hundred four as of today.

· Among them, ‘end birthright citizenship,’ an executive order aimed to revoke or deny citizenship-related federal documents for children born in the U.S. if one parent is undocumented or only temporarily present, a violation of the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution.

· Then, there’s defunding Sanctuary Cities, by withholding federal funds from states/local jurisdictions that do not comply with immigration enforcement (“sanctuary” policies), even though the federal government may not condition funds in ways that violate constitutional or statutory limits.

· How about ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling, an executive order to ban the teaching of gender ideology, or discriminatory equity ideology, which allows the criminal prosecution of teachers for referring to students with preferred pronouns, etc.

· The etc. includes defending women from gender ideology extremism, which tries to force federal agencies to recognize only a biological male‐female sex binary, stopping “gender self‐identification,” and halting funding for gender‐affirming care, etc.

· The freezing or withholding of federal grants / appropriated funds, by executive orders that pause or cut funding for many federal grant programs (health, education, etc.), sometimes conflating “illegal immigrant” presence, or requiring certifications of no DEI programs, etc. These violate the Constitution by taking powers only allowed by Congress.

· And here’s one that every radical will love; attempting to restrict or condition public benefits to illegal aliens by memoranda or orders that prevent certain immigrants (undocumented / unauthorized) from receiving Social Security Act benefits, or to identify programs that do and cut them off.

Illegal aliens (which makes the sound as if they arrived by flying saucer), contributed $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Of that, about $25.7 billion went into Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion was paid in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes, raising legal issues under equal protection, due process, statutory constraints, and may conflict with existing laws that provide such protections.

Yet, with almost daily reports of immigrants and legal citizens being kidnapped off the streets by masked ‘agents,’ and deported to god knows where, how are we to judge our individual jeopardy?

Kidnappings by masked agents and unmarked vehicles are so alien to the American public that references to 1930s Germany are difficult to avoid. But, if you’re under eighty-five, you don’t even remember those times, much less understand their relevance. Only 1% of we oldsters survive today to bear witness.

I’m ninety, and I was there, paying attention throughout the Second World War, my father working at Douglas Aircraft, building C-47s and mom saving bacon-fat, the family working a Victory Garden in our spare time. I’ve heard Hitler speak, on Warner-Pathe News. Edward R. Murrow’s broadcasts from England are not unfamiliar to me. I don’t have to wonder if the Holocaust happened, I watched in Wilmette’s Teatro del Lago theatre as the Birkenau and Auschwitz death camps were liberated.

That’s not in any way a brag, it’s a fact.

What’s happening in America today is very scary, and reminiscent of those times.

I think we’ll get through it, but it’s not a guarantee, and those who sleep through the mid-term elections may wake up to a country they no longer recognize.

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[JF1]