Last November, President Donald Trump won a decisive election victory on a promise to restore law and order to America’s immigration system, but now his administration is being hamstrung by activist judges who are abusing their power.
The robed resistance this president has faced is unprecedented. During Trump’s first month in office, his administration was subject to 14 nationwide injunctions, nearly as many as the Biden Administration faced in its first three years combined. As was the case in his first term, the president has faced stiff pushback from left-wing judges, including James Boasberg, a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. In a case concerning the application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Boasberg recently decided that he, not the duly elected commander in chief, should have the right to dictate U.S. foreign policy, blocking the administration from deporting violent gang members to El Salvador. In a separate case involving the Trump Administration’s decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status previously granted to Venezuelan nationals, Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco halted the administration’s policy despite a statutory prohibition on judicial review of such matters. This has created a crisis of democracy where the president is essentially prohibited from exercising his constitutionally held powers to fulfill the will of the people who elected him.
The actions of these rogue judges not only attempt to thwart the will of the more than 77 million people who voted for Trump in the last election, but are an illegal and illegitimate intrusion into the president’s plenary powers. Under Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government has a duty to guarantee every “State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” and “protect each of them against Invasion.”
The Alien Enemies Act gives the president broad authority to swiftly remove foreign nationals from the country in the event of war, invasion, or a “predatory incursion.” Under the previous administration, more than 10 million illegal aliens entered the U.S. Entire neighborhoods and communities have been hijacked by violent foreign gangs, particularly the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. If this does not qualify as a predatory incursion, it’s hard to imagine what would. Both the Constitution and federal law give the president broad authority to remove foreign nationals from the country who are deemed a threat to public safety and national security. These are fundamentally political questions, and matters pertaining to national security and foreign policy have long been deemed non-justiciable as courts lack the expertise to sufficiently rule on these issues.
The administration has had to work around the Venezuelan government’s hostility towards the U.S. and has struck a deal with El Salvador which allows the U.S. to deport violent gang members to their country in a cost-effective manner. Given the carnage the U.S. has faced in recent years because of the illegal immigration crisis, the president must have the authority to act quickly to remove dangerous illegal aliens from the country.
These are clearly issues having to do with national security and foreign policy which belong entirely within the purview of the political branches, not the courts. The recent spate of rulings against the Trump Administration’s immigration moves are a classic example of judicial overreach. Judges who intrude on the president’s decision making in this area are not just making the country less safe but are threatening the separation of powers which has formed the bedrock of our Republic for nearly 250 years.
The big lie underpinning this anti-borders lawfare is that the U.S. is living under an authoritarian administration which is eroding due process. What is actually happening is that a duly-elected president is using his legitimate authority to remove dangerous foreign nationals from the country, with the broad support of the American people, who just elected him five months ago. In other words, the American people hired this president to do a job, and he is doing it so far.
Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail that he would close the border, and he has done exactly that, with illegal border crossings having already reached record lows. Then-candidate Trump also promised an enhanced deportation campaign focused on the large number of national security and public safety threats allowed into the country during the Biden Administration. He is making good on that promise as well.
The law clearly gives the Trump Administration the authority to swiftly remove illegal aliens deemed national security threats. Activist judges attempting to thwart the administration are engaging in a form of judicial sophistry which poses a grave threat to American sovereignty.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
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