March 3, 2021

Biden’s border policies violate his obligations under the Constitution

By Andrea Widburg

On Monday, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made a very surprising statement when he was asked if there was a crisis on America’s southern border, where up to 4,000 illegal aliens are streaming into the United States daily. The surprise wasn’t that he denied that there was a crisis. Instead, it was that he effectively stated that we are no longer a nation of laws. Instead, Biden’s “vision” supersedes explicit immigration laws.

I’ve cued the video up to begin where the reporter asks Mayorkas if there’s a crisis. His reference to aligning immigration policy with Biden’s “vision” comes at 5:50:


People may no longer realize that America has robust immigration laws. You can find them at 8 USC § 1151 et seq. These laws govern all aspects of admitting non-citizens and non-legal residents into the United States.

The laws are predicated on the idea that America has a border and that it has the right to control that border. Congress addressed not being a public charge, working illegally in the country, bringing in dangerous communicable disease, being mentally ill, being a dangerous criminal or a drug runner, and required visas, sponsors, and entering through appropriate checkpoints rather than sneaking in. Stuff like that.

One of the first things that Joe Biden did upon entering the Oval Office was sign executive orders that either make it harder for government employees to enforce these laws or that require them not to enforce them at all. Thus, he stopped work on a wall that had as its sole purpose preventing illegal aliens from bypassing legal border checkpoints. That is, he made it easier for illegal aliens to sneak in.

He also ordered the “restoration” the U.S. asylum system as it existed before Trump. Trump’s approach complied with the law by requiring people seeking asylum to wait in Latin America until they could formally enter America and make their case. Biden’s reinstated Obama approach allows entry to everyone who claims asylum, assigns them a court date, and then shuttles them into America’s interior where the administration knows they’ll disappear. This isn’t a legal system; it’s aiding and abetting a federal crime.

Biden is also rolling back the “public charge rule,” along with other barriers to immigration. We all know that executives have power over “rules,” except the whole public charge thing isn’t just a “rule.” It implements 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4), in which Congress explicitly stated that an alien is inadmissible if “at the time of application for admission . . . [he] is likely at any time to become a public charge.” Again, Biden is ordering government employees to aid and abet a federal crime.

By ordering his subordinates in the executive branch to ignore or violate federal law, Biden is violating his obligations under the Constitution – the document that describes the beginning, middle, and end of his power. The Constitution, at Article II, Section 1 states that “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Part of that executive power, as expressed in Section 3, is that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed....”

The Heritage Foundation sums up the obligations this clause imposes on a president:
This clause, known as the Take Care Clause, requires the President to enforce all constitutionally valid Acts of Congress, regardless of his own Administration’s view of their wisdom or policy. The clause imposes a duty on the President; it does not confer a discretionary power. The Take Care Clause is a limit on the Vesting Clause’s grant to the President of “the executive power.”
The same article quotes the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reinforcing the president’s obligations to carry out the law (emphasis mine):

Under Article II of the Constitution and relevant Supreme Court precedents, the President must follow statutory mandates so long as there is appropriated money available and the President has no constitutional objection to the statute. So, too, the President must abide by statutory prohibitions unless the President has a constitutional objection to the prohibition. If the President has a constitutional objection to a statutory mandate or prohibition, the President may decline to follow the law unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise. But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections.

Biden’s “vision” is not a constitutional objection. Instead, he is doing precisely what he cannot do: Declining “to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections.”

Obama got away with this type of unconstitutional conduct because Republicans invariably retreated when told that objecting to Obama’s illegal, unconstitutional, and anti-American policies was “racist.” Creepy Joe is lily-white. Republicans should be loud and proud in calling him out on his illegal, unconstitutional behavior.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...stitution.html