Mac-Coleman

16 June 2014 –

The Strategic Picture – Part Two

The second major strategic threat to U.S. sovereignty is our leaders’ disregard of constitutional principles of governance in their handling of illegal immigration.  Webster’s New World Dictionary best defines sovereignty as “independent of all others.”  Our Founders refined the lessons of history and created a nation where the People, for the first time, were sovereign.  The People would decide, through an elected Congress passing laws and an indirectly elected President dutifully enforcing them, how best to govern themselves.  The American People would then be independent of any other influence.  Today, our sovereignty is being dismantled along our southern border. 

For decades, millions of illegal immigrants have been crossing into the United States, breaking U.S. law, and overwhelming the capabilities of our border forces, local governments, and society to deal with them.  Illegal immigrants’ reasons for wanting to come to the United States may be compelling to all; but, their reasons are irrelevant to our sovereignty.  This crisis is not about them; it is about us, Americans, deciding our ultimate fate. 

Illegal immigration threatens U.S. sovereignty in at least two ways. 

One.  Governments from Central America to Mexico not only have encouraged such mass movement, but also have colluded with criminal elements to facilitate it.  For their own corrupt reasons, they are exploiting our government’s dissolute immigration policies.  In very real ways, they now determine who is an American citizen and who is not.  If that is not a foreign attack on and seizure of U.S. sovereignty, then nothing is.   

Two.  In the past thirty years, illegal immigration has increased and decreased, but rarely because of responsible government action.  Neither Congress nor the administration has done its constitutional duty to pass and then implement effective immigration laws.   Both branches of government have abused one of the fundamental elements of vibrant U.S. sovereignty, the rule of law.  America and Americans are not defined not by race or culture, but by rule of law.  If we don’t have that, we are nobody special.     

Most recently, while Congress has dithered, the President has disregarded his constitutional duty to faithfully implement the immigration laws that Congress has already passed.  He has refused to protect our southern border from an assault by foreigners.  He flaunts his illegal actions by saying that current immigration laws are bad.  He says that he, as the executive branch, has the right to create new laws, by pen and by telephone.  The President is seizing power that the Founders deliberately and wisely gave to Congress as the representatives of the People.  He is molding himself and his office as this nation’s sovereign.    

Simply put, borders and the laws that create them matter.  Fences define personal property, and borders define nations.  Our government exists to protect our personal rights and property and to protect us as a nation.  We, the People, determine, through the laws that our elected representatives pass, who we are as a nation.  If the President doesn’t like the existing immigration laws, he should heed the sage example of a predecessor, Ulysses S. Grant.  He faced the enormous task of reestablishing the sovereignty of a divided and contentious nation after the Civil War.  In his 1869 inaugural address, President Grant confirmed his constitutional role by affirming what the Founders had intended: “…all laws will be faithfully executed…whether they meet with my approval or not.” 

President Grant also suggested how the executive branch could influence Congress to change onerous laws: “Laws are to govern all alike…those opposed as well as those who favor them.  I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.” 

Today, the President must return to his constitutionally prescribed limits.  Within those limits, he could convince Congress to fund the appropriate agencies sufficiently to seal U.S. borders completely and, thereby, recover sovereignty from foreign sources.  He could even ask Congress to provide assistance to destitute migrants but only if they sit on the other side of the border.  The President also could convince Congress to sufficiently fund the appropriate agencies so that he could then lead them to faithfully and vigorously enforce laws that further strengthen our sovereignty.  By doing this, he could show leadership consistent with constitutional governance.  What he is doing now is dividing our sovereignty among foreign despots and aggrandizing his increasingly regal office.  We, his subjects, are the losers.