Fortunately, in this situation, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution renders Judge Walters’ order just a public tantrum. A law enforcement operation to enforce a valid federal law can be executed anywhere. States can thumb their noses at federal immigration enforcement the same way I can. In other words, they can’t. It is quite literally for this very case that James Madison explained in Federalist #42 that the federal power over naturalization solved “a very serious embarrassment” and “defect” of the Articles of Confederation whereby “certain descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious” can force themselves on several states had they “acquired the character of citizens under the laws of another State.”
We all agree to strong state powers over education, housing, and local governance, but states have no right to harbor those who trespassed upon the whole of the union before entering that state.
If the DHS and DOJ choose to run away from this fight and allow this neo-confederate version of secession to take root, they will have nobody to blame but themselves. States are wrongly crushed by the feds on almost every local policy. Are we to believe that suddenly, when it comes to the most federal policy imaginable, states are all-powerful and can thwart federal agents?
The Trump administration should coordinate ICE operations with the U.S. Marshals under the Department of Justice and have them arrest any state official violating federal law and interfering with the execution of those laws, as they would when any private citizen who does the same.
It is odd that President Trump and the Justice Department have ignored this insurrection-in-progress. Does anyone think a hypothetical Democrat President Kamala Rodham Warren would be so reluctant to intervene if a Republican-majority state decided to nullify federal law by, say, outlawing abortion in defiance of the Feds?
Ignoring this insurrection emboldens the anti-constitutional left. They now know civic nationalist Republicans will pretend to ignore the left’s attempts to sever the ties holding this nation together. The left realizes it can get away with it.
PS: Perhaps the left has won the open borders immigration fight–and normal Americans simply have not recognized it yet.
The Hispanic population of Los Angeles was 49 percent in mid-2018 and rising, according to Census Bureau data. It may be over 50 percent now. Some 59 percent of Los Angeles households do not speak English at home. One 2018 estimate says the number of illegal aliens nationwide–with the largest number in California–reached 16.7 million back in 2016.
Does anyone reasonably think that ICE could enforce federal immigration law in Los Angeles today?
Here’a one take on the low-level insurrection:
It is odd that President Trump and the Justice Department have ignored this insurrection-in-progress. Does anyone think a hypothetical Democrat President Kamala Rodham Warren would be so reluctant to intervene if a Republican-majority state decided to nullify federal law by, say, outlawing abortion in defiance of the Feds?
Ignoring this insurrection emboldens the anti-constitutional left. They now know civic nationalist Republicans will pretend to ignore the left’s attempts to sever the ties holding this nation together. The left realizes it can get away with it.
PS: Perhaps the left has won the open borders immigration fight–and normal Americans simply have not recognized it yet.
The Hispanic population of Los Angeles was 49 percent in mid-2018 and rising, according to Census Bureau data. It may be over 50 percent now. Some 59 percent of Los Angeles households do not speak English at home. One 2018 estimate says the number of illegal aliens nationwide–with the largest number in California–reached 16.7 million back in 2016.
Does anyone reasonably think that ICE could enforce federal immigration law in Los Angeles today?