Is President Biden Exercising Discretion or Undermining Democracy by Refusing to Enforce Our Immigration Laws?

Imagine a future Republican administration during which the IRS would end referrals to the Justice Department of Americans who don’t pay their capital gains taxes. Or imagine that administration’s EPA redirecting investigative resources away from enforcing climate change laws. How about a future GOP-run ATF limiting inspections of gun stores and gun shows?

These ideas are not as far-fetched as they might seem. Just look at the Biden-Harris Administration, where important, duly-enacted laws and regulations are being made unrecognizable by absurd, and dangerous, interpretations and other abuses of “discretion.”

These actions share two goals: to increase illegal entry into America; and to decrease deportation of those here illegally, including many criminals.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution directs that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….” The Constitution also makes clear, in Section I, Section 1: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in” Congress.

A president cannot pick and choose which laws to enforce, and which to ignore or eviscerate. To do so is to undermine democracy and the rule of law.

But that is what President Joe Biden is doing – or, rather, not doing – at our wide open southern border (which I visited last April, and which he refuses to visit), and in the interior of the United States.

Not long after taking office, his Administration cancelled the highly-effective Remain in Mexico policy that had significantly reduced the flow of illegal entrants. After a federal judge declared this cancellation unlawful, Team Biden slow-walked the court’s order to reinstate it. Now, the Biden Administration is barely using this important program, while it prepares to try again to eliminate it. It’s no wonder the Border Patrol agents I spoke with in McAllen were demoralized: they are not allowed to do their jobs properly.

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Biden’s refusal to enforce the law has unleashed the largest number of illegal border crossers since 1960, at about two million, making a mockery of foreigners who follow our laws to immigrate here legally. It has also contributed to our record 100,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, primarily from China-sourced fentanyl smuggled into the US via the US-Mexico border.

Once here, the Biden-Harris Administration is flying thousands of these migrants into cities and towns big and small, in the middle of the night to avoid public disclosure, and often without even giving prior notice to the governor or local officials. A recent media report indicated some of these illegal aliens were being released in Texas, Florida, and Georgia, coincidentally some of the most important states in recent presidential elections. They also allow these migrants to travel on commercial airlines with no proof of identity. Let’s see you try that!

These policies pose a national security threat, and are a violation of federal law, as well as state and local rights. (Shouldn’t an Administration that releases illegal immigrants, at least do so only to states that president won in the previous election?)

Next, Team Biden imposed a radical new way to block court-approved enforcement actions to deport illegal aliens already here. The policy turns large parts of every town in America into mini “sanctuaries,” forbidding enforcement whenever those deportable aliens are in “or near” so-called “protected areas.”

These enforcement-free areas include – 24 hours a day, every day of the year – the land in or near every school, community college, university, healthcare facility, place of worship, playground, school bus stop, and community-based organization; and in or near anywhere funerals, weddings, parades, demonstrations, or rallies sometimes occur. Four states have sued the Biden Administration to block this illegal, nationwide sanctuary mandate.

The Biden-Harris Administration has also softened the longstanding, common-sense policy of removing all illegal aliens who have committed “aggravated felonies,” or are members of criminal gangs like MS-13. The Administration has added an outrageous, stay-in-America loophole requiring consideration of “mitigating factors,” as CBS News put it, like the “potential advanced or tender age” of the illegal alien felon, and their “eligibility for humanitarian relief.”

It is lunacy not to remove every deportable rapist or gang member.

President Biden’s refusal to enforce our immigration laws leaves us less safe. He has made every city a sanctuary city, and every state a border state. The only people provided no sanctuary under this president are the American people.