Happy Independence Day 2025!

In times like these, the exercise of my patriotic duties reaffirm my faith as an American

In light of the recent ICE raids, particularly in the greater Los Angeles area, it might be difficult for some Americans to feel patriotically this year and celebrate Independence Day.¹ Watching ICE goons brutalize hardworking people and break apart families is not something we recognize as American. Thus, some refuse to celebrate this year.²

I understand this feeling and I don’t judge this viewpoint.

But I don’t share it. (At least not yet).

While I don’t tell others to celebrate or tell others that they need to feel pride as an American today, I do feel like explaining why I’m still celebrating and taking pride in my country.

Here’s why. Last weekend, I printed out over two hundred bilingual ACLU-produced red cards that read as follows:

YOU HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.

I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door.

I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights.

I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.

ACLU RAPID RESPONSE: (888) 624-4752

These cards are printed in the English language on one side and the Spanish language on the other (there are actually over a dozen foreign language translations available for printing but for now, I’m sticking to Spanish).

Doing my patriotic duty as an American, I have been handing these cards out to everyone. I’ve made a particular point of giving them out to the most vulnerable populations: Car wash workers, busboys, valet parkers, restaurant servers, day laborers, janitorial staff, housekeepers, delicatessen staff at the supermarkets, and street vendors.

A few times this week on the way to work, I’ve even pulled my car over upon seeing sidewalk street vendors selling fresh fruit and given cards to the vendors.

The street vendors were extremely appreciative once they realized what I was doing but the sense of fear that they had was palpable. As I approached, I could tell they eyed me as someone potentially working with ICE goons, there to help take them away.

As I walked away each time, I stopped to ponder the absurdity of the situation.

What was their crime? Working hard by standing out in the hot sun all day long? Improving a neighborhood by selling wholesome fresh fruit to residents and workers? Helping our state’s critical agriculture sector earn profit on excess fruit they couldn’t distribute to supermarkets? Hoping to achieve a better life for themselves and their children in the greatest country in the world?

Yet now they now stood fearful of being kidnapped off the street by masked ICE goons at any time. It made me very angry.

But while upsetting, it served as an empowering reminder. We have constitutional protections in this country. And we have separate First Amendment constitutional rights to educate others about their constitutional rights.³

The best thing that I can do to protect people right now from ICE goons is educate them as to their constitutional rights and protections. On Independence Day, I take pride as an American that we have this system of individual constitutional rights that protects everyone from governmental over-reach. I further take pride as an American that I have the ability to educate others about their rights.

In our great country, law enforcement can’t just stop you any time they damn please and simply take you away.⁴ You’re not even required to talk to law enforcement if you choose not to.⁵

Events this week reinforced my American pride when hundreds of high school students protesting ICE decided to shut down Los Angeles’s 6th Street Bridge. Normally, I dislike such tactics because they tend to cause only pointless misery for those who already agree with them in full and persuade no one else in the process.

But here, the protesters had a point.

There has been an attempt to gaslight the public into believing that there was a need to dispatch military into the City of Los Angeles. It’s utter nonsense and it’s at once dangerous (because military should only ever be called into civilian locations as an absolute last resort) and infuriating because it has been a slander of Los Angeles and its residents.

These protesters protested the ICE raids by square dancing to a Spanish version of Achy-Breaky Heart, the Billy Rae Cyrus song that Homer Simpson considers foundational to music, on the 6th Street Bridge.⁶ They demonstrated how laughable the proclaimed need for military in Los Angeles is. They also demonstrated that their spirit would not be broken by the ICE raids, as terrifying as they are.

Oppressors seek to break the public down psychologically to ensure compliance with their whims. King George III attempted to do this repeatedly to the colonists. Trump and his allies are seeking to do this to Americans today.

King George III did not succeed. And I do not believe Trump will succeed unless we let him.

Those protesters on the bridge showed that as awful as Trump is, he cannot break them. We are a free people in the greatest country on earth. When a tyrant demands that we yield and his supporters in government and the media lecture us on the moral righteousness of the need to submit, we Americans will respond by square dancing to Achy-Breaky Heart.

Many would argue that the actions of the Trump Administration are consistent with those of a fascist government with an utter disdain for democracy, individual rights, the rule of law, and basic human decency.

I completely agree.

However, the reaction of the American public is anything but that of an occupied or oppressed people living under fascism.

On this Independence Day, that is something I can and will celebrate.

1. The author of this article is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of California and the District of Columbia. This article and all of the works on this Substack page are statements of the opinions of the author, only, and do not constitute legal advice; they are not intended to be relied upon by any individual or entity in any transaction or other legal matter, past, pending, or future. A paid subscription to this Substack page supports the author’s scholarship and provides access to research that the author has compiled, but does not establish an attorney-client relationship. The author does not accept unsolicited requests for legal advice or representation, and this Substack page is not intended as legal advertising. The opinions expressed on this Substack page reflect the personal views of the author only.

2. This should not be confused with the heavily Hispanic/Latino cities in California that are having to cancel their large Independence Day celebrations out of safety precautions for their community residents.