Why Immigration Laws are Unconstitutional
The Bible commands hospitality and prohibits xenophobia, The Bible assumes a Godly people will be blessed and will attract immigrants.
Too many patriotic Americans ignore both the Constitution and the Bible when it comes to immigration. They display an un-American hypocrisy on the immigration issue. The real threat to America comes from the federal government, not immigrants.
The vast majority of those who would emigrate to America are hard-working, law-abiding, family-loving human beings. They are making productive contributions to our economy. Some call their presence an "invasion," while calling for EastGerman-type fences and "swarms of officers" to keep immigrants out. Even the worst immigrants are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights
Increasing the power of the federal government to deny Americans the benefits of low-wage, high-productivity migrant workers in construction, agriculture, service, and every other industry is un-American.
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What About Article IV, Section 4?
An argument has been made that Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution gives the federal government power to prevent Mexican gardeners, maids, construction workers, and produce pickers from entering the United States. Here is that provision of the Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
The Framers spoke of such invasions as "dangerous commotions, insurrections and rebellions."
The definition of "invasion" in this context is an attempt to destroy a republican form of government, in which "the powers thereof shall be attempted to be taken out of the hands of the people at large" and given into, e.g., a hereditary monarchy.
Tench Coxe spoke of an "invasion" in which:
"a foreign power [might] seduce or over-awe the people of any state, so as to cause them to vest in the families of any ambitious citizens or foreigners the powers of hereditary governors, whether as Kings or Nobles."
Millions of immigrants are here to work hard in fields, construction sites, restaurants and hotels, and support their families, as well as escape a very non-republican government in Mexico. They are here to work, not to set up a hereditary monarchy.
On the other hand, both the Republicans and Democrats ARE TRULY THREATENING our republican form of government. They have destroyed the Constitution, and are setting up fascism, socialism, communism, Bushism or Obabunism in its place.
The anti-immigration forces want to create more "swarms of officers" and give these unconstitutional wolves even more power.
It's Just Sic-ening | KN@PPSTER
Federal Immigration Controls: Founders Viewed Them As Unconstitutional Immigration and the Constitution The Constitution does not delegate to the federal government power over immigration, only over naturalization.
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Chief Justice Rehnquist, delivering the opinion of the Court in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), began the Court's opinion with these words:
"We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8. As James Madison wrote, "[t]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The Federalist No. 45, pp. 292-293 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961)."
The Federal Government has the power to "seal the borders" against Mexicans looking for work as motel workers and produce pickers only if the Constitution gives the Feds that power.
At first thought, it seems unlikely that the Framers would have given the federal government that power. The Declaration of Independence says that
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. . . . He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, |
Why would the Constitution give to the federal government a power which was considered "tyrannical" by the Declaration of Independence?
In fact, the Constitution vested no such power in the federal government.
The Constitution (Art I, sec. 8, cl. 4) gives power to Congress to determine citizenship requirements, not to restrict travel or tell American employers who they can hire. The Constitution gives power to the federal government to determine qualifications for naturalization, the process of becoming a citizen of the United States of America.
Prior to the creation of the new federal government, each state enforced its own citizenship standards. A citizen of the commonwealth of Virginia might not qualify to be a citizen of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania but would qualify to be a citizen of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Just because you weren't a citizen didn't mean you couldn't enter the state to get a job or do business.
The states thought of themselves as separate nations, especially after they declared their independence from Britain, assuming "among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." Virginia didn't erect a fence around the commonwealth to keep out citizens of North Carolina. And when Delaware and Pennsylvania ratified the Constitution along with seven other states, they did not rush to build a fence around the new United States of America to keep citizens of Canada from entering and doing business in the new nation.
The Constitution makes sure than an immigrant has the same chance of becoming a naturalized citizen if he entered the U.S. in Texas as he would if he entered the U.S. in Arizona.
The Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers; the federal government has only those powers which are expressly delegated to it in the text of the Constitution. The federal government does not have the authority to tell Mr. Jones that he cannot allow Señor Garcia to cross the "border" to work on the Jones property.
The Jones Ranch
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"The U.S. Border" |
The Garcia Ranchero
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For generations after the Constitution was ratified, there wasn't even any such thing as passports; people were allowed to travel freely. Most Americans today think like East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall. They think nothing about the government demanding "Your papers, please." We are no longer Americans, we are Nazis and Communists.
And, we are less than Christian in our attitude toward immigrants.
America was based on the idea that "rights" come from God. Borders do not.
For Open Immigration - David Veksler - Liberty.me
Recent Blog Posts
The demonizing of illegal immigrants - The Boston Globe
Something is not wrong -- intrinsically wrong, bad in and of itself -- merely because it is illegal. It is against the law to put anything without postage into someone's mailbox. If your neighbor prints flyers advertising a yard sale and drops one into each letterbox on the street, he has broken the law, but would anyone say he has done something evil?
Someone who crosses the border without a visa in order to find work doesn't deserve to be branded a "criminal." Doing so only inflames and confuses an issue that is contentious enough as it is. And it cheapens a word that should be reserved for
those who purposely harm others through genuinely wrongful behavior: embezzlers, rapists, arsonists, murderers.
The demonizing of illegal aliens keeps us from having a rational discussion about US immigration policy.