Every week we read about some effort or another by states to push back against the Biden administration’s open border policy.
Although I support all forms of state resistance to the border policies of our lawless federal government, Americans need to distinguish between theatrical and real resistance.
Citizens must insist that their state officials, especially their governors, resist federal overreach impacting every aspect of their daily lives and the very fabric of American society.
Each day we read of new caravans of thousands of illegal immigrants moving north to invade our country.
One story reported on many hundreds of illegals from 11 different countries sprinting across the border in just a couple of hours. The most recent report this author has seen was on the dangerous barrios of Venezuela being emptied of the worst criminal offenders, essentially flushing themselves of destructive elements and sending them due north to invade America.
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Let’s examine some of the approaches governors are taking to stop the invasion, which in my view are more theater than real.
Shipping Illegal Aliens
In April, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he wanted illegal immigrants who are caught by federal agents in Texas to be sent directly to Washington, D.C., to the doorstep of the Biden administration. Abbott said the transport would be “voluntary” and signed a directive to the Texas Division of Emergency Management ordering the procurement of buses, planes or other means of “evacuating” illegals from the state.
A week later, Texas delivered the first busload of illegal aliens to Washington, while promising to send more. Apparently tongue-in-cheek, Abbott claimed, “By busing migrants to Washington, D.C., the Biden administration will be able to more immediately meet the needs of the people they are allowing to [illegally] cross our border.”
Should the states do more to address illegal immigration?
The public has been told that these illegal aliens are not in law enforcement custody while on the buses and can travel wherever they wish after getting the free ride to D.C.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced in May that his state would also drop off illegal immigrants in Washington.
Likewise, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to his discovery that the Biden administration was flying “multiple planeloads of illegal immigrants … into his state in the dead of night and under the radar.”
DeSantis described President Joe Biden’s actions as a “mass human smuggling operation.” He adopted a similar strategy to Abbott’s, proposing to send illegal immigrants to Biden’s home state of Delaware, or to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where former President Barack Obama resides.
However, very recently, DeSantis realized the error of this method by declaring “the feds just release them anyways.” He said Abbott “should send them back across the border” and that he, DeSantis, would send resources to Texas to assist. I find this admirable and constitutional, but let’s see if DeSantis’ words turn into action.
This busing strategy is harming the fabric of America our governors are supposed to protect. They have no idea where these illegals go once they exit the buses and all of this foolishness is done at taxpayer expense. There is a better way.
American Governors’ Border Strike Force
In April, Republican governors announced the formation of the American Governors’ Border Strike Force, designed to “respond to the ripple effects of spiraling illegal immigration that include human trafficking and illegal drugs.” Twenty-six, representing a majority of America’s governors, have signed on to the new initiative. This is a good first step.
Ducey described the effort as a plan to “share information [and] law enforcement assets so that we can track down cartels and drug activity to not only put the bad guys behind bars, but to eliminate and reduce the number of overdose deaths that are happening in our schools, neighborhoods, and cities.”
Note the serious historical and constitutional error in Abbott’s statement when he said that “border security has always been a federal responsibility until the Biden Administration.” As the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explained in his concurring and dissenting opinion in Arizona v. U.S. (2012), for most of the history of the nation, the states were heavily involved in implementing their own immigration restrictions.
Notwithstanding “the myth of an era of unrestricted immigration” in the first 100 years of the republic, the states enacted numerous laws restricting the immigration of certain classes of aliens. State laws not only provided for the removal of unwanted immigrants but also imposed penalties on unlawfully present illegals as well as those who aided their illegal invasion of America.
What is the plan from the governors?
The Republican Governors’ Association issued a joint memo from the 26 governors of the Governors’ Border Strike Force, which stated, “Due to President Biden’s disastrous border policies, dangerous transnational criminal organizations continue flooding our communities with drugs while reaping billions of dollars from human smuggling and causing a record-breaking number of apprehensions at the Southern Border.”
The memo noted that “in Fiscal Year 2021, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 5,400 pounds of heroin, 97,000 pounds of cocaine, 190,000 pounds of methamphetamine, 11,200 pounds of fentanyl, and many counterfeit pills or other drugs were interdicted crossing our Southern Border.”
This again proves that there is not a single public policy problem in America that can be solved while we have open borders — certainly not the drug problem. If this is not a Level I national emergency, I don’t know what is.
The governors explained that they acted because “the federal government’s neglect of its duty has forced the states to take actions to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens and to join together at times to protect their collective interests.”
States have always shared the duty to protect the border and, before it is too late, they must act now!
Sharing information to facilitate the prosecution of crimes by illegals is great, but it simply doesn’t make a dent in stopping the inflow of illegals. More action by every governor must now be taken.
Building a Wall
Former President Donald Trump faced resistance at every turn but was able to build over 450 miles of new border wall.
Immediately after swearing to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution as president, Biden halted construction of the wall. Shortly thereafter, he canceled all border wall projects cold in April 2021.
In June 2021, Abbott announced he would continue building the border wall that Trump had begun using a mix of state funds and contributions from the public to help defray the cost. The wall, which I have walked along, was to be installed on state land along with private property that the owners agreed to provide for that purpose.
The Texas Facilities Commission provides periodic updates on the construction of Abbott’s wall. As of April, just 1.7 miles had been “substantially” completed. Abbott must take Texans for fools. As stated, I’ve personally walked along this “wall,” and Col. Travis of “Remember the Alamo” fame must be rolling over in his grave.
While we should be grateful for any wall, add a meager 1.7 miles to the Trump wall of 452 miles and compare that to the total length of the U.S.-Mexico border — 1,954 miles — and you now know why we have an invasion taking place.
I want our governors to do their constitutional duties and protect the safety and security of their citizens from the illegal invasion taking place along our southern border impacting every single state in the union.
Recently and importantly, there was an opportunity for Republican governors to demand that Congress reject the Biden proposal to appropriate $40 billion to protect Ukraine’s border while refusing to spend a small fraction of that amount on Trump’s wall. But the governors were silent.
Some likely didn’t want Trump to get any more credit for the wall — or anything, for that matter. What they don’t realize is that it is no longer about Trump. It never was. It is about protecting the sovereignty of the United States of America from invaders.
And at the risk of repeating myself, I said $40 billion — with a “B” — was spent. The fabric of American society is being destroyed, yet we strengthen the security of one of the most corrupt countries on the planet 4,000 miles away.
More Rhetoric
All state actions to date have done little to nothing to slow the invasion across the border.
Abbott and Ducey penned an Op-Ed in The Washington Post in which they correctly blamed the federal government but then begged the Biden administration for money so the states can do the job the federal government refuses to do.
“We’ve already begun to activate our states’ National Guards to the border to assist, but border enforcement is a federal responsibility. So we are requesting federal reimbursement to support this mission to resolve a problem of Washington’s creation. We continue to support legal immigration. But what’s happening now is not legal, and it needs to end. The president and his team should resolve these issues as soon as possible.”
Why do Republicans feel obliged to keep saying that they are for legal immigration? My view is we could take a five-year pause on all immigration and during that time reassess.
As for getting Biden to give money to the states to stop immigration, don’t hold your breath. That’s not a plan — it’s a news release.
What Abbott and Ducey and the others must do is stop reinforcing the theory that only the federal government has the right and the duty to protect the border. According to our Constitution and Scalia, that view is deeply flawed historically and legally. Each state is a sovereign entity and has a responsibility to protect its borders, thus protecting its citizens.
Fortunately, some state actions that have teeth and may actually stop the invasion at our southern border are being proposed.
For example, Ducey’s likely successor, Kari Lake, has issued a proposal that goes well beyond merely calling on the Biden administration to fulfill the responsibility of securing the border. She has proposed using the states’ inherent power to resist invasions to build a real border wall, enter into an interstate border compact, and use state National Guard troops to repel the border invasion. That’s not rhetoric — that’s action.
There is no more time to wait. The federal government simply cannot be trusted. The states must step in and defend their citizens with more than theatrics.
If states take action, Biden and the rest of the left in our country, and probably the judiciary, will push back, but that is the way the Constitution must be defended.
I will be expanding on exactly what states can do to resist the ongoing invasion in my next article.
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