(Note: The following is the text from the current edition of the AIC Foundation Newsletter.)
| Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution–the “guarantee clause”–gives to the central government the responsibility to “protect each [state] against invasion” from foreign invaders. In effect, that means guarding the borders. The question facing us today is, What do we do when the central government is not inclined to fulfill its duty?
States like Texas and Florida have governors that are willing to stand up to Washington inaction and legislatures willing to back them. Last month, the AIC Foundation posted to its blog an article titled “How to Make Life Difficult for Illegals,” referring to a Center for Immigration Studies article listing specific actions motivated legislatures can do on their own. Drilling down further past Washington, state executives, and legislators, to the county level, we find that now officials in Kinney County in south Texas–joined by representatives from Uvalde, Terrell, Medina, Burnet, and Goliad Counties–have taken action by openly declaring that an “invasion” of their county is underway from the south. In a press release dated July 5, County Judge Tully Shahan cited the scores of smuggling attempts foiled in the county during June, the recent deaths of illegal aliens being smuggled through the county, and the need to “militarize” the county’s public school campuses to prevent high-speed chases. Judge Shahan writes: “We will no longer allow the sovereignty of Texas to be invaded by those unwilling to obey our laws. That is why today, July 5, 2022, Kinney County, joined by several other counties on the Texas border, are declaring the existence of an “invasion” as used in Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution and in Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution. We are taking these steps in hopes of encouraging our Governor to acknowledge the existence of an invasion on our border with Mexico and take the necessary actions to preserve and protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Texas.” The position taken by the Texas counties is the same as one that Ken Cuccinelli, former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, has been arguing for some time. Last year, in a piece on the Center for Renewing America website titled “Policy Brief: How States Can Secure The Border,” Cuccinelli cited the “guarantee clause” above and added the following: “The Constitution provides states an appropriate ‘self-help’ remedy under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3, which stipulates that, ‘No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay.” In his own press conference yesterday, Cuccinelli referred to the Kinney declaration and said, “This gives the governor . . . the authority to repeal that invasion.” The declaration by the county officials carries no weight in itself, and it’s true that Texas Governor Abbott has in the past declined to label the incursion an “invasion”; nevertheless, the more local officials and citizens speak urgently and call a spade a spade, the better chance someone in authority will listen or else be replaced by someone who will. The late Tip O’Neill (D-MA), former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, made famous the expression, “All politics is local.” It turns out that’s true even–and maybe especially– in the matter of immigration. It is your country. Don’t let them throw it away. |