President Obama has issued an election-eve executive order for which he had no lawful authority (as even he earlier admitted) and which was hurried to pre-empt a permanent legislative proposal by Senator Rubio. This political spasm is substantively irrelevant. Last month the Supreme Court said states can initiate federal enforcement of immigration laws. This is relevant, but ignores the question whether that’s what we should want to do in the first place. Do we really want to be focusing this kind of time, effort and money nit-picking over the best way to keep out people who are already here?
One afternoon several years ago, while I was doing what passes for minding my own business as district attorney in Savannah, out of the clear blue I learned that an undocumented immigrant had come to court to answer a traffic charge, and had been carried off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. By the close of business that day, the rumor had spread through the entire Hispanic community here that the DA’s office was setting people up for arrest and deportation from the courthouse.
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