If the federal government ignores the constitution, can states enforce it?

 

The catastrophe on the Texas border with Mexico is becoming worse by the day, and the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to it.

Take all of the imagery you have seen of the over 14,000 Haitian migrants camped under an international bridge in the small Texas border town of Del Rio and add the complications of disease, public excrement, unbearable heat, and heightened frustrations. It has led to violence that has injured Border Patrol officers.

Now close your eyes and imagine it is 100 times worse.

Because that's what it is, said Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, the freshman Republican who represents 42% of the border. The overwhelmed city of Del Rio had been in a rapidly deteriorating crisis situation when illegal immigrants first began surging into the community in January, but Gonzales now says the situation here is a “Category 5” and that the environment is unlike anything he has ever seen before.

“I arrived here today to pure chaos,” he said. “I've never seen it in this environment. There literally is no border left.”

Gonzales said Del Rio is in dire straits. “There's no doubt there's COVID here, there's measles, tuberculosis, all kinds of diseases," he said. "You’ve got kids running around in nothing but diapers. A handful of port-a-potties — my God, the stench is terrible. This is not good for the migrants. It is not good for the residents. It's not good for wherever our government is sending them in the interior of the country."

. . .

Del Rio residents have seen their lives turned upside down. The international bridge has been closed — a lifeline bringing tens of millions of dollars to the local economy. If you're a small-business owner and your business has somehow survived COVID-19, something like this could easily wipe you out.

Everybody has been sucked into this chaos.

“The worst thing is that we are not even talking about the other places where this is happening,” Gonzales said. “Today, we're talking about Del Rio, but tomorrow, it'll be Laredo or Brownsville or Eagle Pass or El Paso. This problem is not going away.”

There's more at the link.

The reason for the Biden administration's indifference and lack of action is obvious.  They see the border as nothing more than an obstacle to their "Great Replacement" ideology.  Keeping out illegal alien invaders - and invaders is what they are, let's face it - would fly in the face of that ideology.  They don't care whether border communities are overrun and destroyed in the process.  As far as they're concerned, they're simply eggs to be broken in making the USA into the omelette they desire.

Article 4, Section 4, Clause 2 of the US constitution specifically provides that the federal government shall "protect each of them [the States] against Invasion".  The progressive left will doubtless argue that "refugees" (most of whom are, of course, nothing more than economic migrants) don't qualify as "invaders".  I daresay the people of Del Rio, Texas, would disagree with that.  I certainly do - but nobody's asking me.

If the federal government has effectively abdicated its responsibility under Article 4, Section 4, Clause 2, then isn't it time the border states acted on their own initiative to do the job?  I think an application to the Supreme Court, arguing that the federal government has failed to exercise its responsibilities and that therefore the states were justified in doing so on the federal government's behalf, might have some grounds for success.  Of course, the Biden administration would fight it tooth and nail - but we'd be no worse off than we are at present.  Another legal approach might be that, in failing to control the border, the Biden administration is undermining its own policies concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.  It's not testing or vaccinating illegal aliens, which is effectively discrimination against its own citizens for not allowing them the same freedoms - and also puts legal residents and citizens at greater risk of infection.

Whatever approach is used, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.  If it does, our entire culture and our constitutional republic will be undermined and destroyed.  If state governments don't step up to the plate, I'm afraid individual citizens and groups of citizens may do so - and they probably won't be much concerned about human, let alone constitutional, rights.  They'll act to stop the invasion, and they'll do so with whatever means they have at their disposal, legal or otherwise.  That'll bring in the federal government to stop them . . . and then we're right on the brink of civil war.

All I know for sure is, this cannot go on:  and, as economist Herbert Stein famously said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop".  Sooner or later, this will stop.  Our only choice - which won't be available forever - is whether it's stopped legally, with minimal bloodshed, or otherwise.

Peter