Read travel-ban ruling

In high school, I was encouraged to explore primary sources and official records. This ensured the utmost factual accuracy. With this background, I was dismayed by a Feb. 19 letter writer who falsely declared that the 9th Circuit Court ruling against President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban “had given (Iranians) a constitutional right to actually bring death to America.”

This seems like an honest misconception. The court’s ruling explains that the government “has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.” There is no mention of the Fifth Amendment permitting murder.

The letter writer also compared Trump to Abraham Lincoln because they were “not most Americans’ first choice.” This is true of Trump, who lost the popular vote by several million. However, Lincoln won both elections by double-digit percentages. Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, who was not elected. Under Johnson, America suffered a failed Reconstruction and the beginnings of the racist Jim Crow laws.

America has given racism chances throughout history. It has not worked before and will not now.

This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Read travel-ban ruling."