Sanctuary Cities

Last week, the Joan of Arc of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, took to the podium in the wake of Donald Trump's election as president to declare that Chicago, infamous for having 656 deaths so far this year, would be safe for illegal aliens seeking to flee the federal government's attempts to deport them.  Putting aside for the moment the irony of the mayor declaring that anyone could be safe in his city, the gall of announcing, merely a week removed from a bitter election, this obvious slap in the face of the President-elect is the functional equivalent of waving a red cape at a bull.

(Yes, I know the color of the cape is irrelevant...).

If anyone took the time to analyze the cities that harbor illegals, she would find that the vast majority of them are governed by Democrats.  This is the same party that will cook an election to get its preferred candidate elected, will coopt the press to skew poll results to persuade the electorate to accept false facts and is now doing nothing to quell violent unrest at the prospect of being governed by a different party.  What's more, Democrats don't seem to understand the Constitution very well.

There are, as we know, a separation of powers between the three branches of government.  There is also, people forget, the supremacy of the federal government over state government in certain matters.  State laws, insofar as they involve certain issues, may not be abridged by the federal government unless they're deemed to violate the Constitution in some way.  For example, contracts regarding sales of real property are state law issues, unless redlining to keep minorities out of certain neighborhoods occurs, in which case it's unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection clause.

Federal law determines immigration status.  For individual cities to obstruct the federal government in its attempts to oversee immigration, they're essentially guilty of a crime -- obstruction of justice.  Because putting a city in jail is impossible, other ways of penalizing the cities is needed.  This, in turn, is where the cities have made their biggest mistake.

Most cities in the United States, because they're governed by Democrats, are in financial straits.  No one likes to dole out money (for votes) like a Democrat.  No one likes to spend money frivolously like a Democrat (although, to be fair, there have been a few Republicans who'd like to vie for that title).  But in so doing, Democrats are butting up against an ugly fact:  The electorate will allow itself to be taxed only so much.  It's the political equivalent of getting blood out of a turnip.  Somewhere, somehow, additional funds must be found.  Welcome the federal government.

The federal government, in turn, when it's run by Democrats, has no trouble turning a blind eye to the cities' insouciance on immigration because it shares the same goals of getting more voters sucking from the public teat.  But when Republicans take over the federal government, the situation turns ugly for cities, because Republicans won't tolerate the cities' defiance on immigration control.  Rahm Emanuel is playing to the crowd, because he knows darned well that Mr. Trump won't stand for his defiance and will slash federal funds to the city -- his only leverage -- which will in turn give the Rahmer stump material when things get tighter financially in Chicago.  What Rahm is underestimating, however, just like the national Democratic party, is the amount of agreement it will find within the electorate against the federal government.

People are fed up.  So far, Mr. Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet, and angry liberals are marching and protesting and lecturing as if they are the ones about to rule.  Yet there were millions of Americans who not only elected Mr. Trump but also a few hundred Republican lawmakers to give the conservatives control of both houses of Congress.  Not only that, Mr. Trump may very well get to nominate four justices to the Supreme Court that would very likely view sanctuary cities unfavorably.  So the federal government will turn off the spigot to cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE and DHS, resulting in untold misery for the citizens of those cities.

And so it should be.  If the citizens agree with what their governors decide, they should share in the misery that budge-tightening will bring.  If they don't, they can vote their governors out of office.  The Rahmer is betting the former will happen.  Heaven knows, Chicago is as corrupt a political operation as the Stalinist machine ever was.  The people are beholden to the Machine and scared to defy it.  Services will be withheld.  Problems will escalate.  Fear is a great motivating tool.

But the courts ultimately will have to settle this issue.  At its root, it's a political issue, but one that lies in judicial soil.  The courts will have to determine how the City of Chicago and other like-minded cities have to respond, and the SCOTUS will decide if the lower courts made the right decision.

And thanks to Harry Reid, President Trump will be able to appoint judges that agree with his vision of America.  Those nominations will be filibuster-proof thanks to Harry Reid and his Merry Band of Idiots, and the SCOTUS appointments will be somewhere in the range of three or four over the next four years.  Good luck on keeping sanctuary cities.

For Chicago, however, it'll be more of the same.  Rahm, who almost lost to someone named Chuy in the last mayoral election, is clearly pandering to a particular electorate, because he's pissed off African-American voters.  He'll probably get reelected in the next mayoral election, and now that his benefactress, Cankles, is out of a job, that's a good thing for him.  But he can ride off into the sunset after his next term, become a political strategist and retire with that smirk on his face.

And the citizens of Chicago will be poorer because of him.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles