In Minnesota, a U.S. citizen lost their life in a context that has shaken the national conscience. The administration of Donald Trump justified what happened by stating that the citizen was obstructing the functions of federal agents simply by being present at a protest and that, furthermore, they were carrying a weapon, without the official justification specifying the legality of the weapon nor providing additional elements explaining the necessity of using lethal force.
The seriousness of the event lies not only in the irreparable loss of a human life but also in the logic used to explain and legitimize that loss from power.
Freedom of expression and the right to bear arms are not only protected by the First and Second Amendments of the United States Constitution; for decades, they have been exalted as central symbols of national identity. However, in this case, those same rights did not operate as constitutional guarantees but as elements used to justify the death of a citizen. This inversion of the meaning of rights demands deeper legal reflection.
From a legal perspective, this logic directly conflicts with the doctrine of estoppel, known in comparative law as venire contra factum proprium. This principle prevents an authority, or any legal subject, from acting contradictorily to its previous conduct when that conduct has generated a legitimate expectation. Applied to the State, the scope of the principle is clear: it cannot punish, criminalize, or delegitimize what the State itself has promoted, protected, and elevated to the category of a fundamental value, nor can it disregard a normative or international order that it helped to build.
From this viewpoint, many actions of the Trump administration cannot be analyzed as isolated events or as circumstantial responses to specific situations. Rather, they reveal a repeated position of institutional contradiction that compromises the coherence of the State with its own legal and historical foundations.
An illustrative example of this contradiction is the intention, expressed at different times, to occupy or acquire Greenland. Beyond the political or legal feasibility of such a claim, it is legally revealing that the United States promotes a narrative of territorial expansion over a territory that has historically been protected under NATO's collective security system, an alliance created in 1949 precisely by the United States and Denmark, among other countries, with the aim of guaranteeing the territorial integrity of its members against external threats. Undermining from within that principle of mutual protection means disregarding the foundational commitments that gave rise to the alliance itself.
Something similar occurs in foreign policy towards Latin America. Without assessing whether certain stances towards governments like Venezuela's are right or wrong, the truth is that many recent decisions depart from the historical spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Originally conceived as a policy of hemispheric protection against European interference, the expression "America for the Americans" referred to the continent as a whole, not to the exclusive hegemony of a single country. The selective abandonment of that principle, or its instrumental reinterpretation, again places the State against its own historical acts.
However, the most serious contradiction from a legal point of view manifests in migration and asylum matters. The United States not only actively participated in the construction of the international refugee protection system after World War II but also formally incorporated those commitments into its domestic law through the Refugee Act of 1980. This legislation adopted the international definition of refugee and recognized the State's duty to provide protection to those fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
The systematic denial of asylum requests, the extreme tightening of evidentiary standards, and the criminalization of applicants not only strain that legal framework: they openly contradict it. The same State that helped design the international refuge system now acts as if that system were an external burden and not a normative creation of its own.
This contradiction does not only affect U.S. citizens; it directly impacts the immigrant community, which has historically seen the United States as more than just an economic opportunity. Over the centuries, those who have migrated to this country have been drawn by a profound promise: the existence of a political and legal order built on clear limits to state power and on the protection of human dignity.
The foundational values of the American nation, derived from the Declaration of Independence and developed through the Constitution—individual liberty, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness—were not conceived as rhetorical aspirations but as normative principles intended to contain power and protect the individual against its abuses.
It was precisely that promise that made the United States a refuge for millions of people fleeing religious persecution, when professing a faith implied imprisonment, exile, or death in their countries of origin. Here, constitutional protection was offered and the guarantee that religious freedom would be respected as a fundamental right. Likewise, those persecuted for their political opinions found in the United States a space where dissent was not a crime but a legitimate expression of democratic life.
When those values begin to be relativized or applied selectively, not only are individual rights violated: the historical and moral foundation upon which American society was built is put at risk.
However, under this administration, that immigrant community is being systematically presented as a threat to public order.
Dehumanization does not occur abruptly but through discourses that normalize exclusion, surveillance, and punishment. Because when the State punishes freedom of expression, trivializes human life, discriminates based on origin, and justifies violence from power, it not only violates individual rights; it undermines its own moral and legal coherence.
From the perspective of the doctrine of estoppel, the damage is twofold. On one hand, the State contradicts itself by acting against the values it historically promoted and projected to the world. On the other, it breaks the legitimate expectation of those who trusted that discourse when choosing this country as home, refuge, or life project for their children. Trust in the State is not built solely with laws but with coherence.
Let us understand that what is at stake transcends the protection of a specific community and demands a broader reflection on the constitutional and moral identity of the United States. The strength of this nation has not resided solely in its economic or military power but in its capacity to sustain a legal system in which fundamental rights do not depend on origin, language, or migratory status. When the State weakens that premise, it does not preserve the constitutional order: it erodes the foundations upon which it was built.
The human dimension of the events that motivate this analysis cannot be ignored. The loss of a life in circumstances linked to the exercise of constitutional rights requires a serious reflection on the direction of the rule of law and on the coherence between the proclaimed principles and institutional practices. When the constitutional promise ceases to offer security and begins to generate fear, the challenge is no longer political or partisan, but structural, and it concerns the very future of the American constitutional order.