Use Of White House For Citizenship Ceremony By Trump Campaign Sparks Criticism – Forbes

A highly unusual event took place on the first night of the Republican National Convention. President Trump, acting in his official capacity as president, participated in a naturalization ceremony in the Cross Hall at the White House for five new U.S. citizens while acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf led them in reciting the naturalization oath. The president then individually congratulated each of the new citizens who came from India, Lebanon, Ghana, Bolivia and Sudan. Holding a naturalization ceremony at the White House attended by the president is not what was unusual. This has happened many times before and has been done by many other presidents. However, what was highly unusual and possibly even illegal was airing the naturalization ceremony at the White House as part of the Republican National Convention.

There are three issues that are immediately evident when reviewing this event. The first is the very visible blurring of the lines between official government acts and personal political events. The second is using the hallowed site of the White House as a venue for a purely partisan political event. The third issue is the possible illegality involved in staging such an event at the White House presided over by a federal employee for airing at the Republican National Convention.

Critics including Democrats, Republicans, ethics watchdogs and legal experts criticized the president for shattering the time-honored traditions and norms of keeping government and politics separate which they argue is important for democracy to thrive. By his actions President Trump disregarded the boundaries between governing and his official role in carrying out public duties, and using the citizenship event to promote his election campaign and his own personal political interests.

“This is indicative of something much more dangerous to our democracy,” said Richard W. Painter, who served as White House ethics counsel to President George W. Bush before becoming a sharp critic of Mr. Trump. Government agencies, “have been turned into arms of his political campaign.”

Senior officials with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is the agency responsible for overseeing the naturalization process, expressed their anger and frustration about the politicization of the citizenship event.

“It’s one of the things that shouldn’t be politicized, and you can hardly get more political than your partisan political convention,” said Barbara Strack, a former chief of the Refugee Affairs Division at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service during the Bush and Obama administrations.

Several of the newly minted citizens were unaware that the swearing in ceremony was going to be aired at the convention until friends notified them of it. The profuse praise for the immigrants turned citizens was a huge departure from the usual anti immigrant policies advanced by the president.   

“He’s exploiting these people at a ceremony that is sacred and fundamental to what makes this country great,” Tim Miller, the political director for Republican Voters Against Trump, told The Journal. “He’s using them in the most cynical and dishonest way. His own policies would cut refugee admissions and asylum status, making it hard for these naturalization ceremonies to happen.”

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee rebuked President Trump for turning the White House, one of the most identifiable and sacred symbols of American democracy, into a political prop by using it as a backdrop for the Republican National Convention.

“He continues to flaunt every single basic rule and basic tenet that Democrats and Republicans both have adhered to. He’s using the White House as a prop now,” Biden said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The White House, regarded as a sacred temple of democracy by the American people and a symbol of their unity and freedom, was used as the stage for the Republican National Convention to promote Trumps re-election campaign.  

Peter Baker in his article in the New York Times NYT described this, “as a radical break from tradition even for an administration that has repeatedly shattered longstanding norms. Never in recent times has a president used the majesty of the White House to stage a nominating convention.”

The President has been vocal about the removal and destruction of historic monuments and has sent federal troops to cities to protect federal property. However, he turned a deaf ear to critics from both parties who expressed concerns about how he politicized one of the most iconic historic monuments in the country by deliberately using it for his own political purposes.

Will Wilkinson, commenting about the convention for the New York Times stated that, “Trump’s use of the White House as a political prop to declare ‘l’état, c’est moi’ — to undermine the distinctions between state and party, office and occupant — is a shocking betrayal of our nation’s republican ideals.”

The third issue deals with an apparent violation of the Hatch Act that bars federal employees from participating in political activities in their official capacity. Legal experts indicated that Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security Secretary possibly violated the Hatch Act by administering the oath for the naturalization ceremony that took place at the White House that was aired during the convention.

The Hatch Act was passed in 1939 and had two intentions. The first was to prevent federal employees from engaging in political activity in their jobs to ensure subordinates were not pressured into voting a certain way and the second was to prevent federal resources from being used for election campaign purposes.

Questions were raised by legal and ethics experts, as well as by federal employees whether the naturalization ceremony held at the White House was a violation of the Hatch Act.  The ceremony was presided over by Chad Wolf, a federal employee and aired at the Republican National Convention.  However, not many citizens are aware of the Hatch Act and an even more important question is how many people care about whether the law was violated in this way. Members of the president’s staff and campaign have privately told reporters they take a certain pride in breaking it. “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares,” said Mark Meadows, the president’s Chief of Staff.

Edward Keenan, the Washington Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star wrote, “It’s hard to argue that a political convention is not a campaign event. And yet there on television are Trump and his staff, using the White House, the country’s top diplomat, and the powers of the presidency as part of the show. Voters may or may not care, but it is nonetheless remarkable to watch a U.S. president not only intentionally violating these laws and norms, but televising those transgressions as an apparent matter of pride.”

There is irony in a situation where legal immigrants to the United States may have become American citizens as the result of an illegal act participated in by President Trump and his acting Secretary of Homeland Security. Welcome to today’s America.