MANCHESTER, Conn.

Upon his inauguration as governor of darkest Alabama in January 1963, George Wallace famously proclaimed his defiance of the federal government on the steps of the state Capitol in Montgomery: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

At a rally on the steps of Connecticut's Capitol this week the state's attorney general, William Tong, struck a similar pose of defiance. He pledged that Connecticut would never distinguish between legal and illegal immigration and would strive to obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law.

"This is the sovereign state of Connecticut," Tong declared. "We delegated limited powers to the federal government, but beyond those powers, Connecticut gets to decide how Connecticut wants to live."

But immigration law is entirely within the authority of the federal government. Connecticut has no sovereignty there. Connecticut doesn't get to decide to live outside federal immigration law any more than Alabama and the other nullification states of the segregationist South got to decide to live outside federal civil rights law.

That the federal government under the administration of Tong's political party lately has failed to enforce immigration law hasn't changed the law, and the recent national election has prompted a change of administrations largely because most voters -- even, it seems, most members of Tong's own party -- want immigration law enforced again. Most people object to the anarchic admission of more than 10 million or more immigrants without normal review and preparations for their housing, schooling, medical care, and policing — a policy failure inflicting much expense and social distress.

The mayors of Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, and Norwalk joined the attorney general at the Capitol, in Hartford, in pledging to defend all immigrants in their cities, legal and illegal alike. "Going after hardworking immigrants in our communities is not going to keep us safe," Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said. "It's going to lead to more fear and uncertainty." 

How do Arulampalam and the other mayors know that every illegal immigrant in Connecticut would never do wrong and never become a public charge? How do they know that any criminals, spies, and terrorists who have entered the country illegally are staying outside the state?

Of course they don't. This is just an article of political faith among the woke. If challenged, some of them may sputter that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than the native-born, as if that excuses all crimes by illegal immigrants and excuses admitting anyone without rudimentary vetting.

But the attorney general, the mayors, Gov. Ned Lamont, and state legislators needn't worry about having to make distinctions between legal and illegal immigration; after all, many news organizations won’t ask them to. 

Indeed, serious journalists would have asked them by now to comment about the immigration-fraud racket reported the other week by the New Haven Independent -- the marriage broker business operated out of New Haven and Bridgeport city halls by the vice chairwoman of the Bridgeport Democratic City Committee, ballot-harvester extraordinaire Wanda Geter-Pataky, who has been arranging marriages between young U.S. citizens and much older foreigners seeking the right to stay in the country, marriages of people who appear not even to know each other.

The immigration-fraud story was retold by other newspapers in the state, and the attorney general, the mayors, the governor, and state legislators almost certainly saw it, but only a few Republicans expressed concern about it. Presumably the others condone what is happening.

While the attorney general and the mayors were assuring Connecticut that unlimited, unvetted immigration -- open-borders policy -- is nothing to worry about, the police chief of Berlin, Germany, was warning Jews and homosexuals to avoid Arab neighborhoods because, as a result of Germany's open-borders policy, the culture there now threatens them. 

That's how uncontrolled immigration has transported Europe back to medieval times. But in Connecticut the attorney general and the city mayors want the federal government to do nothing to restrict the entry of people who might undermine the country's democratic and secular nature. To the attorney general and the mayors, the threat to democracy is President-elect Donald Trump, who would restore ordinary controls on immigration. 

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).