Last week, PJ Media published “Greg Abbot’s Buses: A Great, Unconstitutional Idea.” Fellow contributor Rick Moran reported on the same topic over the weekend. The posts generated the kind of interest that shows that runaway illegal immigration and the steps taken to address the problem are the hottest of topics right now.
Gov. Abbott has vowed to bus and fly illegals rounded up in Texas to Washington, D.C. if Title 42 is lifted. He’s already got buses deployed in various rural communities around the state, and reports on the ground indicate that Biden’s open border junta may have blinked — the dumping of illegals in these small communities has apparently stopped.
Many who commented on my post — which is now several developments behind the news cycle — focused on the constitutional question raised by Abbot’s plan. The most often articulated take was an amalgam of:
Even if it is unconstitutional, which is debatable, bus the illegals anyway; it isn’t as if the Joe Biden “presidency” hasn’t crossed the constitutional line on immigration at every turn.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton backs Abbott’s plan all the way and affirms that he will indeed bus illegals, hoping to turn the issue into a showdown.
Are noncitizens protected under the Constitution?
According to prevailing constitutional opinion and precedent, the answer is “yes.” Rulings in courtrooms across the nation have affirmed that even if an individual is in the country illegally, they cannot be treated extra-constitutionally.
If Abbott follows through with his plan when Title 42 lifts on May 23, ACLU lawyers and others of their ilk will probably pounce with challenges. Viewed through the lens of the current political and cultural environment, the U.S. Justice Department will very likely throw Abbott an injunction fastball before the first bus or charter jet crosses state lines. It is likely that any federal court of appeals will summarily uphold the unconstitutionality of involuntary bus rides.
Meanwhile, the question is begged: what about the Biden administration’s clearly unconstitutional immigration malfeasance? The easy, unsatisfying answer for citizens and voters who want the border secured is that — theoretically at least — you can’t fight unconstitutionality with more unconstitutionality. This ostensibly explains why Abbott, after the press conference announcement Jen Psaki characterized as a “publicity stunt,” quickly clarified that the bus rides/flights to Washington would be voluntary.
But Republican AG Paxton seems to be pushing the envelope with his vow to turn the issue into a constitutionally grounded existential referendum.
The bigger picture highlighted by this states’ rights confrontation is that Biden’s open border is a calamity from a constitutional standpoint and every other standpoint. The administration doesn’t care.
Sunday night on the Fox News show Life, Liberty, and Levin, Trump-aligned judicial warrior Stephen Miller helpfully pointed out that even when the radical Democrats lose in court, as they did in the adjudication of challenges to President Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy, they ignore the ruling and continue apace with the systematic destruction of U.S. sovereignty.
(In an aside, Mark Levin noted that there are many things congressional Republicans could be doing within the parameters of the Constitution to stem the tide, but they are not.)
At any rate, Abbott’s deport-to-Washington gauntlet, stunt, whatever, is theoretically unconstitutional because it would force illegals to go somewhere they do not want to go.
A new question rises like a hydra from the swarm of foreign nationals that will invade North America if Title 42 is lifted:
These people are breaking our immigration laws, and are therefore criminals. We routinely force citizens who have broken our laws to go places they do not want to go, like prison. Why is this any different?
The bottom line in the current cultural and judicially interpreted environment is that illegal entry is not considered lawbreaking enough to warrant loss of individual rights. We don’t jail people for illegal entry, or otherwise deprive them of constitutional rights. The politicians know it and the illegals, even the criminal illegals, know it. If Title 42 lifts, all Americans will receive a crash course in this reality. The federal government under Joe Biden will have opened floodgates that make the current border crisis look almost manageable.
For Our VIPs: How to Save America From Our Illegal Immigrant Occupation
There seems now to be only two ways to avoid making an already calamitous invasion threat even worse. Many Democrats, realizing their political futures are on the line, are coming out against rescinding Title 42. Secondly, if Title 42 is rescinded, a Minute Man-style citizen response could materialize that would martially dissuade illegal entry. Such a response could conceivably escalate and become an all-out border war.
The final salvation — better late than never — could come in the form of a Republican sweep in the midterm elections: an electoral rebuke so resounding it would consign Biden’s open border radicals to history’s dustbin, prompt the reimplementation of Trump’s sane and effective immigration policy, and hopefully provide the political capital needed for a follow-up effort to legally expel under existing immigration law as many illegal aliens as possible.
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