Introducing Trump Watch: A running tally of Trump administration policies, statements and executive actions affecting civil liberties

By Radley Balko

Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in August. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

President Trump’s executive orders and other early policies are coming out at a dizzying pace. Here at The Watch, we’ll do our best to keep a running tally of those pertaining to civil liberties and criminal justice, as well as a catalogue of the Trump administration’s lies, falsehoods, and misdirection.

• So 78 percent of Trump supporters think crime went up under the Obama administration. It dropped by about 20 percent.
• Professor tells Trump to deport him before his Iranian PhD students.
• Trump also plans to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants. The idea is similar to the “Black Crime” section at Breitbart, which of course was formerly run by Trump aide Steve Bannon. Oh, and Nazi Germany did the same thing with Jews.
• While we’re on the subject, it’s worth noting again that immigrants — including undocumented immigrants — are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.
• Bannon, meanwhile, told the New York Times this week that the media should “keep its mouth shut.” Presumably, he’d grant an exception to reports of crimes committed by black people or immigrants.
• Here’s why Trump’s proposed ban on “sanctuary cities” is unconstitutional.
• The Mexican-American border is nearly 2,000 miles long. This video demonstrates just how difficult it will be to wall it off.
• Trump claims that two people were shot dead during President Obama’s farewell speech in Chicago. It isn’t true.
• In his interview with ABC News this week, Trump claimed that Chicago PD was too “politically correct.” If you’ve read the Justice Department report on the department, that’s just a laughable assertion. Here are other reasons why it’s wrong.
• Trump’s plan to ban immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries excludes such countries in which he has business ties. I’m sure this is merely a coincidence.
• Seven months ago, Obama appointed the first outsider to head up the Border Patrol. Mark Morgan’s appointment came after multiple reports of abuse and corruption within the agency. His reform efforts were extremely unpopular with the Border Patrol union. That union endorsed Trump last year. This week, Trump fired Morgan.
• On Thursday, Trump claimed that murders in Philadelphia are “just terribly increasing.” They’ve been consistently decreasing — a 30 percent drop over the past 10 years, according to the Philadelphia police.
• Reason’s Jacob Sullum writes that it’s possible that these aren’t all actually lies — that it’s possible that Trump really believes what he says. And that may be more frightening still.
• In explaining why he believes there was voter fraud in the election, Trump apparently told staffers that pro golfer Bernhard Langer told him that when he went to vote, he saw voters who “did not look as if they should be allowed to vote,” after which Trump “threw out the names of Latin American countries that the voters might have come from.” In addition to the overt racism here, there’s also the problem that Langer is a German citizen, and ineligible to vote.

That’s quite a week. Feel free to leave other news items you may have seen in the comments section. Finally, if you’re a government official who would like to leak information you think we should know about, here’s how you can anonymously contact and send documents to The Washington Post.