Liberals are in a lather over President Trump’s decision Saturday to deploy California National Guard troops to quell unrest in Los Angeles. Responding to open efforts to impede ICE from carrying out enforcement activities against illegal aliens, the President federalized the California National Guard to keep order in the “City of Angels.”
The first objection was that no President has taken over a state’s National Guard without its governor’s consent in 60 years. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson bypassed George Wallace to protect civil rights demonstrators. By June 8, all 22 Democratic governors issued a statement of solidarity with Gavin Newsom, claiming the President had committed an “alarming abuse of power” by activating the California Guard without gubernatorial consent, something they called “ineffective and dangerous.” By day’s end, Newsom dispatched a letter to the President demanding he pull the Guard off Los Angeles streets, asserting it was “unnecessary” and “a serious breach of state sovereignty.”
The situation in California and elsewhere exists because blue cities, counties, and/or states invented a novel concept of sovereignty: “sanctuary” jurisdictions. According to “sanctuary” theory, the “welcoming” jurisdiction can refuse cooperation with federal law enforcement as pertains to immigration. They unilaterally exempt themselves from involvement with detaining illegal aliens.
It is bizarre that some level of government decides to render a federal law de facto unenforceable in its jurisdiction. But even if we are to accept for argument’s sake the legitimacy of such a posture (which I don’t), let’s explore it further.
Sanctuary jurisdictions refuse cooperation with Washington on the ground that immigration enforcement is a federal, not local responsibility. But federal preeminence over immigration enforcement does not exclude local cooperation. It merely means the feds have the lead in the matter. Washington is asking local jurisdictions to work collaboratively with federal law enforcement regarding illegal immigrants.
Sanctuary jurisdictions produce all sorts of excuses why they don’t collaborate, from “limited resources” (Is Fairfax County, Virginia really going to go broke holding the alien rapist 24 hours before ICE picks him up?) to “building local confidence” by not handing over illegal aliens. (Ask Laken Riley’s mother the next time she visits the graveyard how confident she is about New York City).
But even if blue jurisdictions won’t actively work with federal immigration law enforcement, the least they can (and must) do is not impede federal law enforcement.
Local law enforcement may and can be utterly passive with regard to immigration enforcement. But when local officials in fact are less than utterly passive, e.g., when a Wisconsin judge goes out of her way to facilitate a subject of federal interest’s avoiding arrest, that’s not passive. That’s obstruction of federal law enforcement. That’s why Judge Hannah Dugan deserves jail time.
LA Police insisted they had no obligation to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. Granting that argument (dato non concesso) they nevertheless did have an affirmative obligation to maintain civil order so that the feds could do their job. And if they don’t keep order or do it half-heartedly or ineffectively so as to impede federal law enforcement, then it is perfectly legitimate for the President to use the National Guard to do the job locals can’t or won’t.
Finally, let’s look at Newsom’s claims of “breaching state sovereignty.” An equal argument could be made that the whole “sanctuary jurisdiction” sham is a serious breach of federal sovereignty. One lesson from the Civil War -- a war in large part the result of Democrats’ “state sovereignty” claims -- was that states cannot nullify federal laws. Today’s Democrats now claim that a state can nullify a federal law in practice within its jurisdiction by refusing to give it any effect, even in corollary ways when the same suspect also faces local charges.
Newsom objects that federal deployment of the National Guard absent his consent violates state’s rights and is ineffective. On the former argument, he is in good company… with George C. Wallace. Wallace wanted to use “state’s rights” to nullify federal constitutional rights; Newsom, to nullify federal laws. As for using the Guard without gubernatorial approval being “ineffective,” well, it seemed to have worked in Alabama, at least in terms of protecting federal prerogatives (rights) that the locals wouldn’t.
Far from their showcase rhetoric about “rule of law,” “threats to democracy,” “we have no kings,” and “oversight,” the truth is Democratic subversion of federal immigration law enforcement represents the kind of usurpation of national rights that began as that party’s specialty… in antebellum Dixie.
Image: Public Domain