“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
Trump’s announcement signals that the U.S. government will finally begin real enforcement of its immigration laws. It has been common to refer to America’s immigration system as “broken,” with the need for some sort of “comprehensive immigration reform.” Perhaps the laws need to be tweaked, perhaps not, but the reality is that the biggest problem with the immigration laws of the United States is that they have not been enforced rigorously in decades.
President Dwight Eisenhower — in the 1950s — was the last U.S. president to direct a large-scale removal of persons in the country illegally.
Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution makes it very clear that it is incumbent on the president of the United States to enforce American laws — including immigration laws. The Constitution states of the president, “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Just because presidents previous to Trump have been derelict in their duty does not mean that Trump’s action should be controversial, but it no doubt will be characterized as cruel, and will probably be challenged in federal court. No doubt opponents will go “judge shopping” to find a judge who will ignore the fact that the president is simply enforcing present law, as is his right and duty, and attempt to block the action.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf quickly condemned Trump’s announcement that illegal aliens will be rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “If you continue to threaten, target and terrorize families in my community … and if we receive credible information … you already know what our values are in Oakland — and we will unapologetically stand up for those values,” Schaaf responded.
Some of Trump’s critics quickly used the president’s announcement of impending ICE round ups, noting that Trump administration officials had previously threatened Mayor Schaaf last year with legal consequences for alerting illegal aliens in her city of a local effort by ICE to arrest persons in Oakland who are in violation of the law.
Then-ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan, who has since been announced as Trump’s pick for “border czar” (although he has said he is still thinking on whether to accept the position), said at the time, “The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens — making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold.”
The criticism of Trump is unfounded, however, as it is Trump’s prerogative as president as to how to enforce federal law — it is not Schaaf’s. Schaaf needs to worry about enforcement of local laws in Oakland (a high-crime city) and doing things that mayors do. President Trump, on the other hand, has taken an oath to uphold federal laws, such as removing persons who are in the country illegally.
In this endeavor, Trump has picked a new director at ICE who shares Trump’s passion for protecting the country from the invasion of illegal aliens — former Border Patrol officer Mark Morgan. Morgan came to Trump’s attention when Morgan appeared on cable television advocating strict enforcement of all immigration laws. Morgan had already said publicly that it is his intention to not only keep out additional illegal immigrants, but to also remove those already here.
On June 4, Morgan told the press, “Our next challenge is going to be interior enforcement. We will be going after individuals who have gone through due process and who have received final orders of deportation.” Admitting that this action “will include families,” he promised that ICE agents will treat the parents and children they arrest “with compassion and humanity.”
While some have expressed that the public announcements will “tip off” those in the country illegally, and make it easier for them to avoid apprehension, others have countered that making it clear that the laws will now be finally enforced will have the effect of encouraging illegal aliens to leave the country, and discourage others from even trying to enter the country. By law, a person who is caught in the country illegally is supposed to have his chances reduced of ever being admitted as a legal resident, so some here illegally now might decide it is best to clear out.
Expect orchestrated public outrage when the round-ups start, complete with the typical sob stories by liberal reporters. The alternative is to allow the continuation of the flood of illegal aliens entering the country, with all the negative consequences associated with that.
When President Obama campaigned in 2008, he promised the “transformation” of America. While he was president, he spoke to a group of newly naturalized Americans, and told them that they were an important part of his plan of creating the “new” America he envisioned.
As America becomes increasingly divided along ethnic lines, the ideal of a United States of America becomes increasingly more difficult to achieve. Tom Woods, a noted author, explained, “The extraordinarily high rate of immigration, legal and illegal, into the United States is an indication that our country is doing something right. Currently, half the world’s immigrants come to the United States.”
Yet, to hear the Left tell it, America is populated mostly by bigots and haters. Why would so many of the word’s people want to come to a country that hates them so much?
“A facile advocacy of open borders,” Woods wrote, “gives the central state exactly what it wants; the chance to supersede the preferences of property owners, and to provide the pretext for further encroachments on local and individual liberty.”
Woods is right, and all Americans who want America to remain a non-socialist country should hope and pray that Trump is successful in halting a key part of the plan of Obama and his fellow leftists to transform our country.
Photo: AP Images
Steve Byas is a college history professor and author of History’s Greatest Libels, a book that challenges falsehoods perpetrated against such people as Christopher Columbus, Joe McCarthy, and Clarence Thomas.
