by CHQ Staff
In an opinion piece posted Monday in The Washington Post, North Carolina’s Republican Senator Thom Tillis argued that President Trump’s declaration of an emergency on the southern border would set a precedent that could be used by future presidents to fund policy projects Congress rejects.
Conservatives “should be thinking about whether they would accept the prospect of a President Bernie Sanders declaring a national emergency to implement parts of the radical Green New Deal; a President Elizabeth Warren declaring a national emergency to shut down banks and take over the nation’s financial institutions; or a President Cory Booker declaring a national emergency to restrict Second Amendment rights,” Tillis wrote according to reporting by Cathy Burke of NewsMax.
“As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress. As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies that will erode economic and individual freedoms,” Tillis wrote in his op-ed.
Tillis’s point would be worth debating if Democrats exhibited any signs of being constrained by the kind of constitutional limits upon which the Senator bases his argument.
However, as we saw during the Obama years, Democrats view the Constitution as a mere speed bump on the road to implementing their policy objectives, so arguing for constitutional restraint when Democrats have intentionally created gridlock in Congress is a recipe for allowing the existing emergency at our southern border to grow into a genuine disaster.
What’s more, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is on the frontline at the southern border, contradicts Senator Tillis’s assessment of the situation.
“We had thousands of people gathered just across the Texas border in Eagle Pass,” Abbott on Tuesday told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “There is no fence, there is no wall. We had to deploy Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, as well as the National Guard, to make sure this caravan did not come across the border.”
President Donald Trump, with his emergency declaration, has authorized laws already in effect to build fencing to keep people from coming in and bringing drugs, said Abbott according to reporting by NewMax’s Sandy Fitzgerald.
“A couple weeks ago, there was a massive meth drug bust that took place,” said Abbott. “Last month remember there was more fentanyl, a very dangerous opioid, that was found coming across the border that could have killed every man, woman, and child in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.”
Fencing has already worked in Texas, with structures that have been in place for more than a decade helping keep people trying to enter illegally out of the country, Abbott added according to Fitzgerald’s reporting, and fences also kept caravan illegal border-crossers out of California.
What’s more, it appears Senator Tillis didn’t read the Constitution in its entirety before writing his op-ed. Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that:
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.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, based on Department of Homeland Security status indicators, over 279,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and January 31, 2019, of which over 189,000 were classified as illegal aliens by DHS.
Between June 1, 2011 and Jan. 31, 2019, these 189,000 illegal aliens were charged with more than 295,000 criminal offenses which included arrests for 539 homicide charges; 32,785 assault charges; 5,737 burglary charges; 37,234 drug charges; 403 kidnapping charges; 15,991 theft charges; 23,701 obstructing police charges; 1,660 robbery charges; 3,473 sexual assault charges; 2,170 sexual offense charges; and 2,976 weapon charges. DPS criminal history records reflect those criminal charges have thus far resulted in over 120,000 convictions including 238 homicide convictions; 13,662 assault convictions; 3,158 burglary convictions; 17,930 drug convictions; 175 kidnapping convictions; 7,100 theft convictions; 11,336 obstructing police convictions; 1,013 robbery convictions; 1,710 sexual assault convictions; 1,153 sexual offense convictions; and 1,282 weapon convictions.
Moreover, more than 369,000 illegal aliens were arrested along the Texas – Mexico border in 2018, if over 1/3 of a million illegal entries into our country isn’t an invasion what is?
We urge CHQ readers and friends to call Senator Thom Tillis and other Republican Senators and Representatives TODAY. The toll-free Capitol Switchboard is (1-866-220-0044) tell them there IS a national emergency on our southern border, and that under Article II and Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution the President has the authority and duty to declare an emergency on our southern border. Tell them the President was right to use his constitutional authority to declare a national emergency and have the Pentagon build the wall and other needed security enhancements on our southern border. And finally, urge them to vote NO on the Democrat resolution disapproving the President’s Declaration of National Emergency.
