Being a part of a community can be a powerful advantage to have in these difficult times, especially in light of recent political events. We all heard the promises of building walls, banning refuges, and repealing the Affordable Care Act, and now most of these promises have become reality in the form of executive orders. What the new president of the United States doesn’t realize is that his new unconstitutional and anti-human rights policies are uniting communities across the globe in protest.

During the past weekend, protests erupted across the U.S. as people declared their shock and disgust of the controversial refugee ban, which has been labelled by those opposed to the order as ‘the muslim ban.’ The ban declares that people immigrating to the U.S. coming from Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen,  Iran, Iraq, and Sudan are to be blocked from entering the United States.

According to the Trump administration, the goal of their immigration and refugee ban was to reduce terrorist attacks in the U.S. Because the ban occurred suddenly and without warning, many immigration officials and customs officers began detaining people with green cards, visas, and even American passports because of the unclarity of the order.

This was when the extraordinary happened; lawyers, protesters, family members, and concerned citizens alike flocked to their local airports to protest the decision and support the detainees. Many South students, staff and alumni were included in the group of protesters at the MSP airport. Despite the chaos that ensued after the order, no one took responsibility for the consequences and the administration blamed protesters, and the Delta airlines computer system malfunctions for the condition of airports across the nation after the ban.

A few weeks prior, people united in protests across the nation to protect women’s rights including access to safe and affordable reproductive care. The marches were massive and it is estimated that 100,000 people attended the women’s march in St. Paul, including many South students. People attended with friends, family, and even family pets to show their support for the movement.

It isn’t just human rights that are lost to the new administration, the Trump administration are avid climate change deniers, and have vowed to remove the clean air and water acts, two policies which are essential to protecting our environment.

More so, as journalists, it is our job to be hyper aware of the consequences of this administration, as well as fight for people who do not have platforms like Mr. Trump’s to ensure their voices are considered during the creation of these detrimental policies. People like immigrant students who are just looking for an education need to be protected, and their voices must be echoed and amplified.

Although Trump has stated in the past he plans on changing libel laws to make it easier to legally pursue news organizations for ‘false reporting’ we cannot let that stop us from being good reporters.

No matter how many libel laws are changed, we cannot lose sight of what it means to uphold the truth while the leader of the biggest superpower in the world lies about something as trivial as crowd sizes, and uses terms such as ‘alternative facts’ to back track from previous statements.