Give Americans the Right to Sue the Pants Off Sanctuary Jurisdictions

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Why is it that every single law designed to keep out illegal aliens gets turned on its head and every legal loophole gets magnified and exploited? That is because illegal aliens have tens of thousands of pro bono lawyers to distort the law on their behalf, but the sovereign American citizen has no legal help to enforce the laws that are being ignored or violated. One game-changing idea would be to give certain Americans standing to sue when immigration law is violated.

The current border crisis has its origins in one source: the ability of illegal aliens to sue our state and federal governments for simply enforcing our sovereignty, despite centuries of case law stating they have no standing in our country. Yet whenever Americans harmed by illegal aliens try to get standing to sue against lawlessness that affects their security and the public welfare, they are denied standing. Criminal smugglers can sue our government, yet Kate Steinle’s parents can’t sue San Francisco for harboring the illegal alien who killed their daughter. It’s time to turn the tables.

If the open-borders lobby is going to strip sovereignty from the democratically elected representatives and “pass” its legislation in the courts, then it should die by the courts as well. Illegal aliens are more powerful in the legal world than Americans. But what if we changed that equation? What if we create pressure against local governments that will have to fear lawsuits for not enforcing immigration law and especially for outright thwarting it? What if the federal government could be sued for not enforcing any of the 8 U.S.C. 1182 inadmissibilitiy requirements and letting in health concerns, criminals, public charge risks, and labor-seekers into the country? What if states and localities could be sued for violating 1373 (blocking law enforcement from communicating with ICE) and 1324 (harboring, shielding, and inducing illegal immigration)?

The secret antidote to the open-borders problem is simply to enforce current law. But the only way to do that is to even up the litigation score in this litigious society. Why is it that we barely hear about the daily examples of Americans killed or harmed by illegal aliens? We never hear about the fiscal burden, criminal burden, cultural problems in schools and other community centers. That would all change if there were a private right of action for victims of illegal aliens and other Americans or public officials to sue under the right circumstances. It would create an entire market to seek out whether a specific crime or cost was caused by illegal immigration or a particular illegal immigrant. It would change the narrative back to where it needs to be: protecting the interests of Americans over the aspirations of illegal aliens.

Read the rest from Daniel Horowitz HERE.

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