Now would be a great time for POTUS to invoke the ‘Insurrection Act’ following latest court loss over immigration

President Donald Trump arrives at Shannon Airport in Shannon, Ireland, on June 5, 2019. (Pool/Getty Images)

by usafeaturesmedia By Jon Dougherty

(NationalSentinel) Last month, we republished an earlier story claiming that an unnamed official within the Trump White House said that after another federal court decision blocking the president’s decision to use Pentagon funds for border wall construction, he was considering invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to seal the border and mass-deport illegal aliens.

Our report cited a story by The Daily Caller in which the unnamed official laid out the potential strategy, noting that Trump could marshal “tremendous powers” to put his policies into effect by essentially declaring the country in crisis:Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, the president has the authority to use the National Guard and military in order to combat “unlawful obstruction or rebellion” within U.S. borders. The act was last invoked in 1992 by George H.W. Bush to quell the Los Angeles riots, and was also used by Eisenhower in 1957 to enforce school desegregation in the south.

An official expressed concerns that Trump’s use of the act’s powers would face legal challenges, pointing to the lawsuits against the president’s travel ban from majority-Muslim countries. However, as the official noted, the travel ban ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court.So there is precedent to utilize the act, although not as it pertains to illegal immigration. And of course there will be court challenges — but then, that’s the problem already.Too many activist federal judges pretending as though the American people elected them to run the country.We didn’t. We elected Donald Trump. And his authority as head of the Executive Branch is not simply being challenged, it is being eroded with each court decision barring him from exercising powers he clearly has under the law and under the Constitution.

We don’t say this lightly because the rule of law is supposed to matter in America — but it may be time for the president to defy the Judicial Branch in reclaim the authorities vested in him as president and head of a branch of government following the latest federal court ruling Thursday by a well-known “Obama judge” who has no respect for the rule of law and no respect for Executive Branch.As reported by Breitbart News, the White House lambasted Judge Jon Tigar, from the Northern District of California, after he overruled another federal judge and issued a nationwide injunction against a new policy issued by the White House “of denying asylum to migrants who refuse to ask for asylum in Mexico or other safe countries which they cross during their trek to the U.S. border.”

“The tyranny of a dysfunctional system that permits plaintiffs to forum shop in order to find a single district [federal] judge who will purport to dictate immigration policy to the entire Nation … must come to an end,” the White House said in a statement yesterday following the ruling.There’s no doubt that is true.The president has the authority to do this; not only is it codified under Article II of the Constitution, but it is enshrined in federal law. It’s Judge Tigar, not Donald Trump, who is acting lawlessly. In his ruling, he claimed mindreading powers when he wrote, in part, that he believes Trump’s decision to implement the rule was “arbitrary and capricious.”‘Arbitrary and capricious?’ How is this even a legal standard? Tigar ‘believes’ Trump is acting in bad faith, so because of that, he doesn’t get to be president? Is that how it works?There can be no doubt that what’s happening along our southwestern border is a crisis. The president has already declared it to be a national emergency and honestly, that declaration alone should have been enough for him to utilize existing powers to deal with it.But alas, that action was blocked by a federal court as well — by another activist judge who claims more authority as a single district jurist than the president of the United States and the head of an entire branch of government.

We believe it is time for the president to reassert Executive Branch authority. He must do it not only for his own presidency but to preserve the integrity and authority of the presidency for future chief executives.He must act, but doing so carries risks. Yes, he will be blocked by another federal judge, but he must act in any event — which means he risks impeachment by a Washington political establishment (both parties — sorry, that’s just true) who love open borders or whose donors love them. Then we’ll truly be in a constitutional crisis. But what choice does the president have? He cannot continue governing only at the whim and will of federal judges who act as ideologues instead of federal jurists whose only role is to apply the law and the Constitution, not to presume to know what is in the heart and mind of the president.

It’s not up to federal judges to agree with every presidential policy. Their role is to apply policies to the law and our founding document, and if neither is injured or violated, then they are obligated to rule as such.We are truly at a crossroads, and the Left has brought us to this point. If we are to have a country — with borders, with laws, with order — then someone must act to ensure that we do. The president is the best person suited for that task.

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