Lester Dent

County Highway published the Minnesota fraud story on 11/12. A full week before the "exclusive" Rufo story.

Therein lies your error. You think (because of what you are fed on X & from Dem pols, Legacy Media & advocates, that it is indiscriminate. A little reflection will show you that is not the case. ICE & CBP don’t have the manpower to indiscriminately target possible illegals. They follow leads, tips, investigation results to select individual targets, groups of targets, or areas known for targets to hang out. They know this is in large part a PR matter as well as an enforcement one. Your post illustrated this. So they WANT to be able to publicize “Today we took down a murderer, a rapist & 3 gang members.” These are the high value targets they are after. But say they learn Jose, a MS-13 Ranfla leader, is at home at 123 Elm St. They have a final deportation order, so they move in. There they find 3 other illegals, who may or may not be Mojado or Novato gang members. Do you ignore the other illegals & just take Jose? Or since they are violating the law do you also detain the others for deportation? It’s like if you arrest a burglar in the company of 2 wanted purse snatchers. Do you take in all 3 or say, “Naw, you are wanted criminals but we’re gonna let you go.” If you are cracking down on crime you always arrest everyone there you can ID as a wanted criminals. Today, all illegals are wanted. All are subject to deportation. If encountered, all should be detained.

Wow. Lots of responses to yourself. You may not agree with the law. It’s still the law. Immigration is a federal area of concern. Period. That’s the law. If you want, we can argue about how Jefferson & Madison opposed the Alien & Sedition Acts while Hamilton supported them, or how John Adams supported & signed them into law. We can talk about House Speaker Jonathan Dayton who supported the A&SA who was also a part of the original Constitutional Convention. We can discuss how SC Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth helped draft the Constitution & strongly supported the A&SA (he left the Senate before passage of the law but was part of the Federalist support for it). If we want to go back, George Mason & Patrick Henry opposed the Constitution itself. But all that is moot. There was a winning side & a losing side in this disagreement, just as there was a conflict between Petrine & Pauline theology in the early Christian church (Paul won). Jefferson & Madison opposed the A&SA on the grounds of not being an enumerated power. However, just a few years later Jefferson as President & Madison as Secretary of State approved of the Louisiana Purchase, against strong opposition claiming this was not an enumerated power (cite in the Constitution where it says the president can acquire foreign lands & populations). Were they correct in their interpretation? Jefferson was unsure; Madison pushed it through. Constitutional law is complicated. History & the great men who make it up are complicated. Great men are also not consistent or always right. Madison read into the constitutional treaty power the ability to acquire new lands & populations. How different is that from reading into the naturalization power a more generalized immigration power? Again, you will never wrest immigration from the federal government. It is baked in, & has been for over 225 years. Madison & Jefferson lost (controversially) that argument. They won (controversially) on the Louisiana Purchase. I’m happy with both results.

Please re-read the 10A. It says nothing about immigration. It is a reinforcement of the political requirement that the 3 branches of government are limited to enumerated powers set out in the Constitution. This, of course, has long been abandoned, but the 10A says the enumerated powers belong to the federal government, with all other power resting in the states & ultimately in the people who elect their leaders. However, the Constitution does talk about immigration; it is an enumerated power of Congress. Read Article I, Section 8, Clause 4: “Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power… “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;” Congress expressly has the enumerated power to pass laws re “naturalization” (ie citizenship). Then there’s the SCOTUS case of Chae Chan Ping v. US: “The power of exclusion of foreigners being an incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States, as a part of those sovereign powers delegated by the Constitution, the right to its exercise at any time when, in the judgment of the government, the interests of the country require it, cannot be granted away or restrained on behalf of any one.” (Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581, 609 (1889).) “The power of the legislative department of the government to exclude aliens from the United States is an incident of sovereignty… and is vested in the national government exclusively.” (id. at 603–604.) More recently in Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012): “The Government of the United States has broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens.” (id. at p 394.) “The federal power to determine immigration policy is well settled. Immigration policy can affect trade, investment, tourism, and diplomatic relations for the entire Nation… It is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States.” (id. at 395.) So no, the 10A does not say the federal government (Congress) cannot set immigration law. Both the text of the Constitution & SCOTUS cases explicating that sovereign federal power refute your contention.

Franklin County, FL courthouse statue — celebrating an administration unlike any other.