A protester burns American Flags during the Justice for Jayland National March, Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Akron, Ohio.

President Donald Trump doesn’t appreciate it when anyone sets fire to the American flag.

I don’t either. Yet, I value the First Amendment more.

On Aug. 25, Trump signed an executive order that seeks additional penalties for those who destroy the flag. The order promises to “prosecute those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country, to the fullest extent permissible under any available authority.”

I get where Trump is coming from.

As his edict states: “The American Flag is a special symbol in our national life that should unite and represent all Americans of every background and walk of life. Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative.”

Everything about that statement is true. However, the act of burning or otherwise “desecrating” the flag – when not done in conjunction with unprotected expression – is free speech, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That gets to the heart of what the First Amendment is all about. It’s easy to support speech that we agree with. It’s a different story, however, when that speech involves something we vehemently oppose.

In America, the government does not get to decide what’s acceptable expression. That’s a good thing, regardless of where you land on the political spectrum.

Flag burning is symbolic speech. Justice Antonin Scalia agreed.

The Supreme Court in 1989 ruled 5-4 in Texas v. Johnson to uphold flag burning as political expression, protected by the Constitution.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia – highly esteemed by conservatives (and Trump) – cast the deciding vote.

At an event in 2015, Scalia explained his decision this way: “If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

Our Founders, who escaped a king, crafted the Constitution and its strong free speech protections specifically to create a barrier between the government and the expression of its citizens.

“The point of the First Amendment is to protect unpopular speech, and it’s to prevent the government from being able to pick and choose which messages people are allowed to express,” Conor Fitzpatrick, supervising senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told me.

Even noncitizens have free speech rights in America

That’s why FIRE is suing the Trump administration for its efforts to deport legal immigrants based on their speech alone.

The free speech group filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month against Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s use of immigration laws to revoke migrants’ permission to be in the country. Migrants like Mahmoud Khalil have gotten most of the attention, but many others are concerned about the government coming after them for their speech.

The government detained and sought to deport Khalil, who holds a green card, this year for his involvement in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, some of which turned violent.

FIRE represents two noncitizens in the country legally and The Stanford Daily, the student-run paper at Stanford University, where some students on visas fear speaking out about the war between Hamas and Israel.

Migrants who have been given the privilege of entering the U.S. are obligated to abide by our laws and Constitution; in return, they are entitled to the protection of those same laws, FIRE’s Fitzpatrick says.

“If the First Amendment doesn’t exist in the context of immigration, it opens the door for rampant viewpoint discrimination by whichever party happens to be in power,” he says. “We should never be giving the government power to treat people differently based on whether that person is saying nice things about the government.”

Preserving our cherished free speech rights, which are stronger than anywhere else in the world, means making room for views we may find abhorrent.

If the government can punish views we don't like, it can also come for the ones we do.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump doesn't like flag burning. I don't either, but I like free speech more. | Opinion

Reporting by Ingrid Jacques, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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