Just how committed is the Biden administration to an open border?
This much: They’re still so committed to an open border that they’re now trying to stop the state of Texas from actually enforcing the border.
The state of Texas tried to erect barbed wire fencing in the middle of Shelby Park, a Texas state park, to prevent illegal immigrants from simply rushing over and into the interior of the United States. The White House then ordered Border Patrol to take down some of that fencing. The White House has also attempted to sue the state of Texas to stop the state from passing a law that would criminalize illegal entry into Texas, a law which would allow the state to arrest and then presumably attempt to deport illegal immigrants.
The Biden administration basically said, “No. Only we have the prerogative when it comes to enforcing border law. And we have chosen not to enforce border law, which means you cannot enforce border law,” which is an absurd contention. The entire purpose of the federal government is to enforce things like the border. If they won’t do it, then states probably do have the sovereign ability to actually enforce the border.
That was the question before the Supreme Court. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday:
The Supreme Court allowed Texas to begin arresting and deporting noncitizens on its own—only for another court to step in hours later and block any such state efforts for now.
The rapidly shifting landscape comes thanks to a legal showdown between Texas and the Biden administration, which argues that states can’t interfere with federal authority over the border.
In the afternoon, the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law known as SB 4, which makes illegal border crossing a state crime and allows state officials to conduct arrests and deportations. The measure had been on hold as the high court weighed the federal government’s request to halt implementation during ongoing litigation. A federal district judge had enjoined the law after it was challenged by the Biden administration and immigrant-rights groups, but the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, issued a temporary order that allowed SB 4 to go into effect.
The decision will probably be remanded back to the appellate court, and then it will come back to the Supreme Court in another form.
The Wall Street Journal continued, saying:
A state enforcing its own immigration law in conflict with federal policy could have an immediate and wide-ranging impact on the border. Migrants who claim asylum from persecution have long been eligible to remain in the U.S. at least temporarily because federal law implementing international treaties bars summary deportation before their cases are decided.
In other words, the federal government decides to grant someone temporary asylum status while their case is pending. The state of Texas can say, “Well, I don’t know about that; this seems pretty sketchy. We’re just going to arrest you and deport you anyway.”
What’s so odd, of course, is that for years and years and years, we’ve been told that it’s totally fine for states not to cooperate with federal authorities in their non-enforcement of the borders of the federal authorities.
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Ask cities, for example, to give federal authorities information when an illegal immigrant is arrested? Cities can call themselves sanctuary cities and simply refuse to comply.
In other words, the Left-wing perspective is that if you are the city of New York and you wish to call yourself a sanctuary city, the federal government does not act. You occupy the space and you can do what you want.
But if you’re the state of Texas and you wish to actually enforce the border, you’re out of luck.
The country of Mexico immediately said they won’t even accept any sort of deportees from Texas; if you try to ship them back into Mexico, they would not accept them. They would only accept them from the federal government.
That shows you how hand-in-glove the Biden administration is working with the Mexican government.
Remember, Donald Trump had negotiated a Remain in Mexico policy with the Mexican government that said if you tried to cross the American border and you were captured or you applied for asylum, you had to wait in Mexico to hear whether a court would allow you into the country or not. You could not be released simply into the United States and then never show up for a court date again.
Joe Biden walked that back.
The Mexican government, of course, prefers to work with Biden rather than the state of Texas. The government of Mexico put out a statement saying:
On behalf of the Government of Mexico, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns the entry into force of Texas law SB4, which seeks to stop the flow of migrants by criminalizing them, and encouraging the separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling that violate the human rights of the migrant community.
I didn’t realize there was such a thing as “the migrant community.”
Spoiler alert: There isn’t. It turns out the migrants come from over 100 countries all around the globe. They don’t constitute their own community.
The state of Texas, which is heavily Hispanic, is not simply going after Hispanic people. They’re going after anyone who is there illegally.
Mexico is saying if a Chinese national crosses all the way through Mexican territory and then goes into the United States and the state of Texas, and you arrest that person and try to deport them back to Mexico, Mexico will refuse and say, “We have to protect our border from the American invasion from the North.”
It is the Biden administration that has announced multiple times that it will not take executive action to do anything about the border.
And that issue is going to continue to be an albatross around the neck of the Biden campaign.