Since the recent election victory of Donald Trump, a growing cadre of Democrat politicians on the state and city levels have announced their plans to defy any attempt by the incoming President to engage in mass arrest and deportation of people in their locales who have broken U.S. immigration statutes.
The latest to join the chorus is Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who ramps up the Dem-centric political opportunism by claiming that, should Trump try to enforce federal immigration statutes by engaging in mass deportation, sending federal agents into Denver, the feds will encounter a “Tienanmen Square” moment.
James Morley III reports for NewsMax:
“Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has threatened a ‘Tiananmen Square moment’ using tens of thousands of Mile High City residents to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from his plan to deport illegal immigrants.
‘More than us having [federal agents] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,’ Johnston said to The Denverite on Wednesday.
‘It's like the Tiananmen Square moment, right?’ said Johnston, referring to the infamous image of a Chinese student and People's Liberation Army tank coming face to face in Tiananmen Square in China during the 1989 uprising.”
He’s got a colorful imagination. And his inflammatory statement comes on the heels of other politicians engaging in similar oppositional rhetoric. As Reuters reported last week, Democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom is working on ways to thwart Trump’s expected immigration roundup, Washington Governor-elect Bob Ferguson (D) is preparing a response to block or decrease the impact of Trump’s expected actions, and NY Governor Kathy Hochul and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey both have said they are getting their state attorneys to focus on fighting Trump, with Healey saying that state police will not help Trump and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu recently saying that local cops also will be instructed not to assist the feds.
Related: TX Gov. Abbott Invokes 'Invasion Doctrine' To Challenge Border-Crossers | MRCTV
Reuters notes that the Democrat governors of Illinois and Colorado have joined forces to create a new affiliation to oppose Trump and continue the status quo – on immigration, and other matters.
“With their Governors Safeguarding Democracy group, Democrats J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado join attorneys general and other Democratic governors who have pledged to resist conservative Trump policies on everything from immigration to rollbacks on environmental protections.”
Even conservative Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has announced his opposition to Trump moving federal troops into states to enforce a mass deportation.
Writes Bo Erickson for Reuters:
“Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul voiced opposition on Sunday to the idea of using the military to carry out mass deportations of people living in the country illegally after President-elect Donald Trump signaled last week that he plans to do so.
‘You don't do it with the Army because it's illegal,’ Paul said on CBS's ‘Face the Nation’ program. ‘If they send the Army into New York and you have 10,000 troops marching carrying semi-automatic weapons, I think it's a terrible image, and I will oppose that.’"
Paul refers to the 19th Century Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal troops inside states without Congressional approval, but the prohibition goes deeper. The U.S. Constitution, itself, states in Article Four Section Four that militia under federal command can enter states only if the state legislature or the governor (if the legislature is out of session) request that aid to protect their republican form of government from violence or invasion.
As I noted in 2022, this actually is something Texas Governor Greg Abbott has done, and he has expressed dissatisfaction over Joe Biden’s response.
The Texas state constitution, approved in 1869, includes an article establishing a “Bureau of Immigration” in it.
If the people of Texas believed Congress had the power to control immigration, why would they bother creating their own Bureau of Immigration?
The answer is that Congress DID NOT have such an enumerated power, and the only reason contemporary Americans argue over what the feds “should do” at the border is because of a 1875 Supreme Court ruling in the case of “Chy Lung v. Freeman” which was a challenge to a California statute imposing a charge on boat-owners who were facilitating ingress to Chinese women (seen as likely prostitutes by the politicians). With the ruling, the Justices simply made-up federal immigration control.
Curiously, the state politicians pushing back against Trump are trying to curry favor with their leftist base, garner votes (possibly from migrants), and look “inclusive” rather than maneuvering against the Lung v. Freeman ruling.
Trump "Border-Czar" Thomas Holman has already issued a warning to them. "If they're not willing to help, then get the hell out of the way because [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] is going to do their job," told Fox News earlier this month.
Homan said that the immediate focus will be on those illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or charges, as had been the focus under the first Trump administration.
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