President Trump’s lawyer is trying to convince a judge that not only did President Trump, as a tenant, have the power to tear down a large part of the White House, but that President Trump has the power to “bulldoze the Statue of Liberty.”

As we approach July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the 13 British colonies declaring their independence from the King of England, has Trump declared our independence from what the Statue of Liberty stands for?

Here is the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Supporter or foe of Donald Trump, can anyone believe he and his Administration stand for these principles?

President Trump has publicly labeled some human beings as being from “s..t hole” countries, while also publicly musing about why no one is coming here from Sweden.

(As a young boy, I remember my Swedish-born grandmother observing, “There are no more Swedes coming here, just foreigners.”}.

My grandparents came here from Sweden as desperate teenagers, seeking a better future in the United States.

While I felt sorry for them that they never made it back to Sweden to see their relatives., never once did I hear them express any such regret.

Over 1,000,000 Swedes came here in search of a better life.

Likewise, millions of Irish came here in desperation as a result of the potato famine.

No doubt many Americans in the late 19th century and early 20th century received these Swedes and Irish as coming from “s..t-hole” countries.

When Sicilians and Italians started coming to America in great numbers, the Congress was appalled.

According to the Library of Congress, immigration limits on Italians and Sicilians in the 1920s was the result of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924. These laws targeted Southern and Eastern Europeans using a quota system to favor Northern and Western European immigrants. The great era of Italian immigration came to an end.

The antipathy toward Italian and Sicilian immigrants manifested itself here in Chautauqua County. In the 1920s it was not uncommon for deeds of property in West Ellicott to contain restrictive covenants restricting for all time the sale of those properties to Italians or Sicilians.

In contrast to the politics of the 1920s (and the 2020s?) President Ronald Reagan had an entirely different view of the importance of new immigrants to America.

In his Farewell Address to the Nation in January 1989, Reagan said: “You can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman. You can go to Germany, but you can’t become a German. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.”

Reagan often described new arrivals as the source of American energy and innovation.

Reagan’s position included the importance of legal immigration as underpinning his “Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.”

In 2026, how does it help our country to make it hard for a PhD from India to be able to work, for example, for Corning Glass in Corning, NY (one of the largest employers of PhDs in America)?

Forcing that PhD to go to another country such as England or Canada, instead of the United States, to find work makes no sense.

President George W. Bush attempted, without success, to achieve comprehensive immigration reform. He proposed strengthening border security while creating a legal, organized channel for foreign workers to fill jobs Americans were not doing, which would reduce unauthorized border crossings and creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The undocumented immigrants would have to pass a background check, pay any back taxes and get in line to apply for legal status.

President Bush’s philosophy was, “America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time.”

Today within our Federal government both the rule of law and America as a “welcoming society” are under assault.

As we near the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a declaration aimed at a King, do we accept a President’s absolute power to “bulldoze the Statue of Liberty”? Or do we embrace our Constitution with its separation of powers and its system of check and balances limiting the power of every American President?

Fred Larson is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Yale Law School and is a retired Jamestown City Court judge.