By Andrew Morrow

Right now, the governor of Texas and up to 25 other states are in open defiance of the US federal government. Unless you are terminally online, though, you might have missed it. Establishment media outlets like The New York Timeshave so far refused to cover this governors’ revolt, although the newspaper of record did amplify the complaints of nine Democratic governors.

Let’s back up. In 2012, the state of Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico, lost a case at the Supreme Court (Arizona v. United States). The Court ruled that federal immigration law is supreme over state laws; the states, therefore, cannot enforce immigration law or prevent people from crossing the southern border. Federal supremacy is an established principle of American constitutional law, but the negation of state authority to hinder and deal with illegal immigration was unprecedented. The Supreme Court decided that this was the federal government’s exclusive responsibility. To borrow Douglas Adams’s phrase, this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move by those on the right. Either way, it is now the law of the land.

Since then, the federal government has largely abdicated its responsibility to enforce the southern border or immigration law. More illegal immigrants than the total population of 33 states have been allowed into the country within the last four years alone.

Conservatives are outraged. One of the oldest responsibilities of any state is to make sure that that state’s borders are secure. If a state’s borders are not protected, its distinctiveness from other states is non-existent. Quite simply, a country without borders is not a country. For the last 14 years, elements of state governments have tried, and largely failed, to claw back any scrap of authority they can from the federal government in the area of immigration. At times, state law enforcement has........

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