Texas Just Won a Border Fight That Common Sense Settled Years Ago |
Texas just scored a significant legal victory in its ongoing fight to protect its citizens from the consequences of federal immigration negligence.
And before the constitutional scholars start firing off angry emails, let me say something up front:
Yes, immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. It should be. The Constitution largely says so.
The federal government should lead. The federal government should enforce. The federal government should secure the border. The federal government should do the job taxpayers are paying it to do. Which, as it turns out, was exactly the problem.
For four years under Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, Americans were told two things simultaneously.
First, that only the federal government could enforce immigration law.
Second, that the federal government wasn’t particularly interested in enforcing much of it.
And then came the third part—the really magical part. States weren’t allowed to do much about it either.
Now maybe it’s because I started working in radio when I was 14 years old, but I’ve spent most of my life listening to people explain things. And whenever someone has to explain something that hard, that often, and with that many lawyers involved, there’s usually a pretty good chance the explanation isn’t nearly as convincing as they think it is.
The Biden Administration’s position essentially boiled down to this:
“Only we can enforce immigration law.”
“Okay,” said Texas. “Then enforce it.”
Apparently, that was supposed to sound persuasive. It didn’t.
It sounded like the kind of argument your children make when they don’t want to do a chore but also don’t want anyone else doing it either.
The Constitution grants authority over immigration to the federal government because America is one nation. We don’t need 50 different immigration systems. That’s common sense.
But here’s another piece of common sense that Washington somehow misplaced for several years:
Authority........