Chris Powell: Corrosive, politically correct lawlessness on immigration

Illegal aliens at U.S. border

With his attempt to prevent the U.S. Census from counting illegal immigrants, President Trump has a fair point. Since the Census determines the decennial reapportionment of the U.S. House, its inclusion of illegal immigrants conveys greater representation on the areas in which they live even though they are not citizens, cannot vote, and shouldn't be there.

Counting illegal immigrants for reapportionment purposes creates a system like the one used during the era of slavery, when the U.S. Census credited states for three-fifths of their slave population even though slaves couldn't vote, transferring their political power to their enslavers. Slave states thereby gained advantage over free states in House representation.

Democrats in Connecticut and throughout the country want the census to count illegal immigrants because they concentrate in Democratic areas, which is why Republicans oppose counting them.

But fair as the president's point is, he's absolutely wrong on the law. For while the Constitution did not anticipate as much illegal immigration as the country has today, it requires that the Census count "the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." The Constitution could have required counting only citizens, or counting everyone while excluding non-citizens from House district apportionment, but it didn't.

Maybe this was an oversight. But with the Fourth, Fifth, and Six Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution provides basic protections for citizens and non-citizens alike -- protections for "the people" and "persons," not just citizens

Since Trump is so wrong on the law here, states and cities are suing to block his order about the Census. Connecticut is one of the plaintiffs, brought into the case last week by state Atty. Gen. William Tong. But while Tong faulted the president for lawlessness, he overlooked the lawlessness right under his nose on the same issue.

For even as Connecticut joined the Census lawsuit, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker announced that he is strengthening the city's protections for illegal immigrants, protections that forbid police and other city employees from cooperating with federal immigration authorities or asking people about their immigration status. While these policies are not themselves illegal like the president's census order, they are meant to obstruct and nullify federal immigration law, and they do.

Mayor Elicker said he wants New Haven to be a "welcoming city." That's a euphemism for admitting everyone no matter what, including fugitives from justice and foreigners who violate immigration law and even intend harm to the United States. New Haven's longstanding policy, reiterated by the mayor, is that anyone who breaks into the country and reaches New Haven should be above the law.

This is not just a policy of nullification, the practice of Southern secessionists before the Civil War and segregationist Southern governors who defied federal civil-rights law in the 1950s and '60s. It is also a policy of open borders and devaluation of citizenship, the dissolution of the country. Further, while the mayor is inviting more illegal immigrants to New Haven, his city is suffering an explosion of violent crime and social disintegration, with shootings and multiple drug overdoses practically every day along with the erosion of the school system.

Quite without more illegal immigrants, New Haven already can't take care of itself, and its legal residents may feel less welcome. The mayor's posturing about illegal immigrants doesn't improve life in the city. It's a politically correct distraction from decline.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.