Restricting Family Visitation is Unconstitutional

By: Gilberto Acevedo, M.A

Webster University

When citing unjust laws, there is a few that concerns me the most. But at this point, I will take one
from the top of my list. That is, the law I vehemently abhor is the “Travel-related transactions to,
from, and within Cuba by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction” (§ 515.560 et seq.). The language
points to helping Cubans to rid off Castro and other illusionary fanfare that fails to convince a fourth
grader. I would argue that it offends the Constitution from various directions.

And please understand that what seems and appears aberrant to me, may not necessarily be to
others. But most importantly, those actually affected by an unjust law are ultimately the most
authoritative to opine. The other side of my argument is that politicians are deft and irresponsive to
the concerns of the people. Unless those concerns pour to fill their desks and threaten to consume
long hours of staff work in responding to each constituent, a delegate will idle through any
legitimate concern brought by one or two citizens.

The United States Constitution is such a finely crafted document, that most jurists entirely relay on
its words to interpret the laws and apply for or deliver justice. But unlike the Constitution, that in its
Ninth Amendment recognizes natural rights (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”), the travel-restriction
law responds to the narrow interest of a handful of politicians, namely Cuban-American Republicans
with a personal score to settle with Castro. The law, while absolutely arbitrary and capricious, was
enacted using the void that exists between politicians and the people called ‘people‘s trust.’ Anti
Cuban-American family right republicans knew that not much were they to accomplish using the
front door of Congress to pass such oddness. Hence, they appealed to the man who is willing to
bypass congress and use his power (I am referring to a man whose authority gives him access code
to the back door of our system of laws) to step and smear over our founding document, with
impunity, arrogance, and malevolence. Any law designed under these parameters, is a law bound to
produce harm to the average citizen, therefore unjust. Whether those laws shall be repelled through
litigation or letters to representatives is a matter of choice and resources. The average Joe does not
have those luxuries.

If a law produces any kind of harm to any portion of the populace, local, estate, and federal
legislators should not have passed it in the first place. Common intelligence tells us that quietly
passed laws will eventually create social malfunction, but we never know to what degree or how
much of any additional damage could result from said malfunction. History also tells us that a
country built over a foundation of democracy is ultimately intolerant of injustice; and that changes
can occur forcefully as emergency measures. It only takes a little spark for emergency changes to
take place, whether through a charismatic individual, an event, or a politically incorrect statement
made. But despite the lessons we have received in history, some politicians are more concerned
with their ties to interest groups than with the needs of the people who sent them to Office.

We have seen the consequences that injustice and bad laws bring to our peace. We have seen what
Rosa Park sparkled and what Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished; what took place in Los Angeles
and many other social unrests we have experienced. But evil men still persist to challenge the line
of limitations between right and wrong to advance their harm-producing passions.

I sustain that traveling to visit families in Cuba is an inalienable choice, so undisturbed and
respected by the Constitution, therefore unregulateable. We do not need consent from our
government to share love and companionship with our loved ones. I propose to challenge the
Executive Order by traveling without such a “specific license.” And that will be the way we send a
strong message to the President that an unjust law is not a law at all (as St. Augustine puts it); and
under that reasoning we need not to obey it. We can still hear the resounding words of Dr. King
from the jail of Birmingham: “one has the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” How much
truth and historical essence is not contained in those words?

Our democracy and liberties were built over those pillars when we severed our ties with England.
Our Forefathers held liberty so sacredly, that in the crafting of the Constitution, they structured the
system of “checks and balances” to keep our three branches in line. But today, more than
yesteryears, we have being experiencing how these branches overfill their boundaries. We have
seen how the judiciary have being legislating politics from Marbury v. Madison to Bush v. Gore.
Every day we see and come across court opinions that, in attempts to create precedence in common
law, practically legislate rather than apply the law (this is commonly known as ‘bench legislature‘).
We have seen how the House, under the Republican Majority, blindfully fallowed and supported
Bush’s incompetent decisions, thus neglecting the very role for which we sent them there in the first
place. And lastly, the Executive Branch has but conducted its business of leadership under capricious
and self-serving formulas. Hence, what is the sector of our system of democracy responsible for
bringing up those constitutionally granted checks and balances? We The People.

The Supreme Court has gradually become a subordinated branch to the White House and,
historically, has delivered unjust decisions. If society shapes the judicial-decision process --and has
done so throughout history--, I don’t know why we can’t do it in this case! If society would have sat
idly over the belief in White superiority, the opinion by Justice Roger Brooke Taney in Dred Scott v.
Sandford (1856), would have survived until today. Just because the President says we cannot travel
without restrictions to visit our families, and that we cannot spend our hard-earned money the ways
we like, we do not have to comply with his unconstitutional order. The President has no authority to
neither override nor destroy what our Forefathers built for us. Nor he has the authority to curtail
into our natural rights. Enjoying our loved ones is a natural right, which even the most brilliant
document ever created in history leaves undisturbed. And in fact, emphasizes to preserve.

The President has being so blatant, that his order involves the use of force to curtail the rights of
Cuban Americans. He will have Cuban Americans incarcerated to further his crimes against innocent
citizens. Where the government uses its prerogative of force to enforce unjust laws, it is
perpetrating a crime. And it further aggravates said crime when it uses taxpayer’s moneys to
mistreat the very people whose money funds the existence of that force. The Travel Restriction Law
deserves neither respect nor compliance, and I will give this law the same credit I give to the
President’s competency, zero.

The law restricting visits to families in Cuba deserves neither respect nor compliance. It is
unconstitutional and a crime against families who have no choices in the antagonistic atmosphere
between the Cuban government and the private passion of Cuban-American Republican politicians.

I’ll expect to be apprehended on my return from Cuba, traveling there without any specific license,
carrying a bag of memorabilia from my home town and an album of pictures taken with my children,
grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Let’s see how well that stupid and
unconstitutional law will stand in a public forum.

I’ll keep present that seating in the jury box, there will be twelve of my peers and Bush’s staff will
be easily removed during the voir dire. Unless I be taken through the back door of our justice
system; a no surprising event in the Bush Administration. I still will visit my family without fear, for
both the Constitution and God are on my side.