CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Representatives with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of West Virginia say they’ve noticed a marked increase in membership since the election of Donald Trump on November 8, 2016.
“I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, this is great news,” ACLU Executive Director Joe Cohen said on Wednesday’s edition of MetroNews “Talkline” with Hoppy Kercheval. “What I’m saying is, people are ready to fight back. And I think that’s good news.”
Cohen further explained that “fighting back” is meant in preparation for a Trump Presidency, which officially begins Friday at 12:01 pm.
“I think people would be foolish not to take a person at their word,” Cohen said. “When Donald Trump campaigns on some of these very extreme positions, such as there’s going to be a Muslim registry. Well, if I’m a Muslim, I’m going to take him at his word that he’s going to try to do that. I’m going to take him very seriously.”
Cohen said if President-elect Trump governs and promotes policy in the same manner which he ran his campaign, he expects the ACLU to have a busy four years in front of it.
In particular, Cohen said the promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants living illegally in the United States bares all the markings of a civil rights catastrophe.
“If he follows through on that, it’s unthinkable that there wouldn’t be violation of people’s due process and equal protection rights,” he said.
“You can’t see it. You’re walking down the street, you have no idea if somebody’s undocumented. What are you going to use to determine? Are you going to use their ethnicity? The language that they speak?”
Cohen believes that campaign promise from President-elect Trump is one of several things driving increased membership and participation from West Virginians.
“That sort of large scale police action can only be done by violating people’s rights,” he said.
Although West Virginia was a stronghold in November for the President-elect, Cohen said opponents of the Trump machine feel a “call to action.”
“We’ve gotten a tremendous outpouring of support from people who have never really been involved before,” he said. “And they want to volunteer.”
The ACLU is holding a series of training sessions for activists who wish to, according to the Facebook event, “fight back against the coming assault on our civil liberties.”
The second such event will be at Marshall University’s Memorial Student Center on Thursday, January 19.
The ACLU held their first training in Martinsburg.