Had you told Congress, or the White House, in the 1970s or 1980s that the world’s immigration system had, in the second decade of the 21st century, devolve into an athletic scrimmage between the states, they’d had thought you a fool.
Federal legislation oversees and regulates immigration to the United States, they may have insisted, whichever side of the aisle they sat. Those laws may change over time, and certainly they have, through the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and the Immigration Act of 1990, to name just a few cases. But it’s always been a problem for the federal government, deriving its power from Article One of the United States Constitution. Without affordable problem.
Then consider the events of the past few weeks. We’ve seen a flurry of legal battles over the desire of one of the 50 states, Texas, to enforce a state law that allows Texas officials to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country ( and thus Texas ) illegally. On Tuesday, the U. S. Supreme Court first allowed the law ( known as SB4 ) briefly to take effect, only for the , U. S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to block it that same night. It remains in limbo, its legality undecided. The core of the issue is how many latitude claims should be given to ( in the terms of Texas ) “regulate mysterious misconduct and prosecute crimes involving improper entry”. It has become impossible to separate the politicians from the rules.
This is not just a Texas problem, either. It’s erupting. Just within the past year, Iowa legislators passed their own expenses making it a crime to provide Iowa after having been either deported or denied entrance into the United States. Similar legislation with just minor variations is being proposed in several other claims with Republicans in power at the legislature, including Louisiana, Missouri and Oklahoma. When it comes to a vital issue as to how nations identify themselves, the nation appears to be dividing itself in two.
For some Republicans, this energy is born of their anger in what they see as not just the Biden administration’s silence when it comes to emigration issues, but their sense that their states are being unfairly burdened by persons flooding across the border with intentional disregard for the nation’s laws. By this way of thinking, boundary communities are being unfairly burdened, resources stretched, public safety risked and the quality of life for citizens and lifelong lasting residents undermined, especially those who do not reside in lush suburbs. Moreover, many say, the idea that some U. S. laws are, well, laws and others, such as what happens as you breeze past the border, are optional or can be waved away has a pernicious effect on society as a whole.
If you can ignore immigration laws with impunity, this logic goes, then why should you be detained for stealing from a drugstore?
It’s time Democrats better understood that these are fair points. We’d also note that, in progressive cities, the expansion of the so- called Sanctuary City concept from the reasonable original assertion that nobody needed to be calling in federal immigration authorities for some minor urban violation to, in effect, becoming a declaration of far broader protections. The Democratic cities declined to cooperate in enforcing laws with which many of their leaders disagreed philosophically. They may have had a point, but that’s not our point here. They still contributed to the dysfunction.
Finally, there is Donald Trump, who any fool can see has put his own political interests in November before the interests of the country he campaigns to lead. He scuppered the most recent attempt at compromise on exactly those self- serving grounds. He’s to blame probably more than any other single individual, assuming you forgive the fealty to his wishes of elected Republicans.
Immigration should not be impossible for this nation of immigrants to figure out. We have experience, after all. Peer nations have managed to come up with a cohesive set of enforceable rules, designed to balance compassion for the world’s oppressed with the economic needs of the host nation. In many countries, substantial economic growth has flowed from smart people on immigrant visas with paths to citizenships. You do n’t see Canadian provinces or British counties or Australian states jumping into their fray with the own ideologically varied approaches to who gets in the door. It’s a settled fact that nations have to make at least the core of these determinations together. That’s what makes them cohesive countries.
So, no, the Supreme Court should not let Texas meddle in immigration law, nor Iowa nor any other state that may be so inclined. But every day this country’s elected federal officials fail to work together to solve this issue is a day the nation’s essential cohesion becomes yet more at risk.
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