Quite a lot, actually, and the Left has this right—even if they’re on the wrong side of the naming question. DoJ has begun referring to those who’ve entered the US illegally as “illegal aliens,” and the Left has gotten its collective panties in a twist over it.
Here’s Chicago Tribune journalist Todd Slowik:
The phrase “illegal alien” plays into assumptions that immigrants living in this country without proper documentation are criminals[.]
For the Left it means sanctuary from inconvenient laws. Nevertheless, the House has passed two bills aimed at eliminating such sanctuary by reducing the ability of local cities and counties to give sanctuary to illegal aliens. One such is the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which looks to persuade—notice that: not force, as many on the Left insist it does—locals to hold folks in jail who’ve already been arrested by locals for local violations for up to 48 hours in response to an ICE detainer. Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal alien who had just been released—deliberately in contradiction of an ICE request. Opponents, though, insist that
Who are a Federal judge’s—at any level of the judicial hierarchy—constituents? I asked this question of a number of folks, and the most cogent answer I got was this: “in order, the law and justice.” Even that answer, though, is only about one-third right IMNSHO.
Here is the first oath of office Federal judge and Justice must take; it’s the same as any Congressman must take.
The 4th Circuit Appellate Court is hearing the Trump administration’s appeal of Hawaii and Maryland Federal trial judges’ preliminary injunctions blocking implementation of the President Donald Trump’s second Executive Order imposing a temporary travel delay of its own on persons from six Middle East nations from entering the United States (with provisions for case-by-case exceptions). Even though Hawaii is in the 9th Circuit and not the 4th, I’m using the Hawaii ruling as my example here since the Maryland ruling is substantially the same, the Hawaii ruling is more readily available, and I’m lazy.
One Syrian, Kassem Eid an erstwhile media activist in Syria, and a victim of the gas attack that was Bashar al-Assad’s calling of then-President Barack Obama’s (D) bluff of a “red” line and that exposed Obama has being too timid to back his words, had a thought about aid and support to Syria’s refugees in a recent Wall Street Journal. Here’s the money quote.
America, if you really care about refugees, then take to the streets, call your representatives, and ask for even further action against the murderer who displaced us. President Trump could order strikes to fully ground Assad’s air force, whose bombing forces civilians to flee. The Assad regime still has more than a dozen operational military airports from which to continue its attacks. Help civilians by creating safe zones and no-fly zones.
This episode is from Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D). He claimed last Sunday, with a straight face that
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “targeting” mayors like himself, and intimidating them into being “fugitive slave catchers that run around and do their bidding in our cities.”
Milwaukee County, WI, Sheriff David Clarke was more polite than I:
I’ve heard a lot of stupid things [but] comparing fugitive slaves to illegal immigrants is the gold standard of stupidity[.]
I say, rather, that Baraka’s TDS has turned him into an irrational election-denier.
In South Dakota v Dole, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal government could not withhold already committed funds from States in amounts that could coerce the States into obeying Federal diktats, such withholdings were legal but only in amounts that would be persuasive rather than coercive (as an aside, the Court did not get around to identifying a threshold or a threshold region that would separate the coercive from the merely persuasive).
The irrationality of some Federal District judges is being made palpable by their rulings against the latest Executive Order involving a temporary moratorium on folks from six terrorist- and terrorism-supporting countries. Here’s one example, from US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii:
The illogic of the Government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.
Yet he chose not to explain his own logic, nor did he deign explain the limiting principle he holds underlying this claim. Indeed, he explicitly refused to explain himself:
San Francisco asked a federal judge Wednesday to block President Trump’s order threatening to strip federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities that bar police from enforcing immigration laws.
This suit has a good chance of succeeding. In 1987’s South Dakota v Dole, the Supreme Court ruled (in a dispute over the State’s minimum drinking age and Federal highway funds transfers to the State) that the Federal government cannot withhold already agreed Federal funds from a State in order to coerce State acquiescence with Federal wishes. Funds can be withheld to “persuade,” but the withheld funds must be related to the question at hand rather than a blanket withholding, and the amount withheld cannot be coercive in its size, but only persuasive. Without naming a threshold for the amount, the Court held that the 5% withholding imposed by the Federal government was not coercive.
Recall that President Donald Trump has signed a revised Executive Order that imposes a short moratorium on entry into the US from six (down from seven under his original EO) Middle Eastern countries. Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin has filed suit in Hawaii’s Federal District Court to try to block this new EO. The EO, Chin claims, will damage Hawaii’s
economy, educational institutions, and tourism industry; and it is subjecting a portion of the state’s citizens to second-class treatment and discrimination, while denying all Hawaii residents the benefits of an inclusive and pluralistic society.