Nullification, tried by John C. Calhoun and South Carolina against President Andrew Jackson and the federal government, and a few times since, is back!
The state of California has been busy proclaiming its independence from federal law. Not satisfied with simply defying federal orders to hold illegal aliens convicted of crimes on a city-by-city basis, so-called sanctuary cities, California has declared itself a sanctuary state in defiance of an executive order by President Donald Trump promising to enforce federal immigration law and defund cities.
Trump recently signed an executive order calling for expedited illegal immigrant deportations and the increased apprehension of illegal immigrants to prevent crime, deputizing local municipalities to enforce immigration law, and defunding sanctuary cities.
More recently, the state has passed laws forbidding its citizens from cooperating with federal law enforcement in finding and capturing illegal aliens. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra openly stated that of employers cooperated with ICE agents in giving information on their employees that contradicts California law, they will be prosecuted.
California Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon has proposed a bill that would prevent state and local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal investigations in the submission of criminal records to the FBI via the National Crime Information Center database. Under the California law, the state would stop interfacing with this database unless the federal government certifies that the criminal records will not be used to enforce federal immigration law.
California’s blatant disregard for federal authority threatens the safety of all of California’s citizens — and the American people. By cutting off state and local police from cooperating with federal authorities, it becomes more difficult for federal agencies to protect citizens — and people will die. Blocking criminal record sharing information regarding illegal immigrants will enable the commission of serious commit crimes, use government assistance, and in this trying time, possibly bring international terrorism into our borders with no protection to American citizens.
The Supreme Court has ruled strictly and consistently based on the constitution that the federal government’s authority to preempt state law. The Preemption Doctrine is drawn from the Supremacy Clause of the constitution which states that “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Arizona even tried to enforce federal immigration law where the Obama administration refused, and the Supreme Court intervened against the state. The court held that the federal government has sovereign power over all immigration and alien status questions.
Functionally, if not by actual open declaration, the state of California has seceded from the union. It has broken the collective agreement on which the nation itself was founded. It apparently wants to have its cake and eat it, too, however. It wants all of the benefits of being part of the union without surrendering the right to ignore our laws as it sees fit.
I recall one pundit asking after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, why Tennessee couldn’t become a sanctuary state for traditional marriage in the same way those sanctuary cities defied federal law on immigration. I have a feeling those nullifiers would have been hauled off to jail and the army would have been called in to enforce federal law, just as it was in the civil rights era.
If this nullification, part of a pattern of resistance to the legitimate Donald Trump presidency, is allowed to stand, then California is a de facto foreign country.
