Trump Follows the Rule of Law

More Misinformation from the Media:

President Trump’s immigration enforcement initiatives, such as they are have had a rough run in the federal courts . . . Trump wrote, “See you in the Supreme Court.” . . . That followed a noxious broadside on the courts for Press Secretary Sean Spicer that ‘the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our nation.’ No, a federal judge looked at the administration’s bullying threat to withhold funds that it had no statutory authority to withhold and declared it unconstitutional. That is the very definition of upholding the rule of law. . . .  Congress [should] revive the 2013 comprehensive immigration bill . . . .  At the risk of belaboring the obvious, immigration—despite society’s occasional surges of xenophobia—made this country. Not only does it define the nation’s past, it will define the future as well. – Trump Needs a Better Approach to Immigration Because Bullying Isn’t Cutting It, Los Angeles Times, The Times Editorial Board, 4/29/17. [Link]

Fact Check: Contrary to the Times’ claim the president does have statutory authority to penalize sanctuary cities. It derives from the Illegal Immigration and Immigration Responsibility Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and signed by President Clinton, which prohibits states and other jurisdictions from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. Under our system of government, Congress makes laws and the president is supposed to enforce them.

This is precisely what President Trump did when he threated to cut federal funds to sanctuary cities for violating the law. Just how this constitutes “bullying” is difficult to discern. While it is true that a lower court can rule an action unconstitutional, as one in instance did, our system of law allows for court rulings to be appealed. Are the Times editorialists unaware of this fact? By proposing to appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, President Trump is acting in perfect accord with the rule of law.

If the Times editorialists really care about that rule, it’s surprising that they want a revival of the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform legislation. That proposed measure displayed contempt for the rule of law by offering legal status and eventual American citizenship to millions of illegal aliens—in effect rewarding them for breaking our laws.

The notion that “immigration made this country” is one of those breezy immigration clichés deigned to short-circuit critical thinking. It evades such questions as to whether the level of immigration we had in the past is appropriate to our future as a developed country. It implies that just because some immigration is beneficial that unlimited immigration is beneficial—which is like saying that because a glass of wine a day is healthy that binge drinking vodka will make a person much more healthy.

If it can be said that “immigration made America” in a good sense, it can just as well be said that immigration restriction was beneficial too. A primary case in point was the restrictionist legislation in the 1920s which sharply reduced the massive immigration of the preceding decades. That sharp reduction helped immigrants assimilate and boosted wage levels—which enabled immigrants and their children to move into the middle class. No doubt the same consequences would follow if we cut our massive level of immigration today.

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