Finish the Wall

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Trump stopped the flow of illegal aliens across our southern border by enforcing the law and deporting many of them. This is a remarkable achievement by Trump that many liberals have done everything they could to obstruct.

But illegal aliens are marching toward our border again in anticipation of gains by Democrats in the midterm elections. Already, 400 Honduran migrants were spotted entering Mexico on October 15, as they strode north on track to reach our border after Election Day.

Republicans had begun to build the long-sought border wall along the porous Texas-Mexico border, but Leftist lawfare has halted its construction. The wall is needed to prevent another influx of illegal migrants into our country once Democrats acquire some political power again.

Republicans secured funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill enacted last year for a mixture of sturdy 30-foot-high steel bollard walls, surveillance cameras, and vehicle barriers to stretch across our 2,000-mile southern border. This would bring us closer to the permanent security we need, and also save lives in the dangerous and expensive work of ferreting out elusive migrants who find a way to break into our country any way possible.

These migrants have families back home and that is where they should work toward their future. They can become active politically to import our constitutional government and Rule of Law into their own countries, for the benefit of themselves and their fellow citizens in a country where (unlike here) they speak the native language.

The Big Bend Sector includes 517 miles of the 1,254-mile Texas-Mexico border, and construction was ongoing there until federal district judge Kathleen Cardone ordered a halt on October 2. Bulldozers were merely clearing some land, but even that was too much for liberals who oppose this worthy project.

Judge Cardone has ruled in favor of illegal aliens before, as when she issued an injunction against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to stop illegal aliens suspected of having Covid. This time she has enjoined construction of the border wall in the Big Bend region of West Texas, including Big Bend National Park, which is a corridor for illegal aliens to sneak into our country.

Most district court injunctions can take years to litigate through ordinary appeals, during which migrants could exploit this gap. Trump’s Solicitor General, John Sauer, has wisely taken this issue quickly to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing an application last week for the High Court to allow Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to continue building.

Even experienced attorneys would be surprised to learn that the applicable federal statute prohibits appealing this type of injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which is the typical procedure to run a case up the ladder. Instead, a provision added by the REAL ID Act of 2005 states that this district court injunction “may be reviewed only upon petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

So Trump’s top attorney has done that. Sauer points out in his application that the district court lacked jurisdiction to interfere with the construction of this border wall, and thus the Supreme Court should issue a stay against the district court’s injunction and reverse it.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended in 2005, contains a special jurisdiction-stripping provision as urged by Phyllis Schlafly for this and other issues on which liberals sue for activist rulings to interfere with implementation of the law. The statute takes jurisdiction away from federal courts for legal challenges on this issue, except for claims alleging violations of the Constitution.

There is no plausible constitutional objection to building a border wall. Sauer explained that Congress has granted the Secretary of Homeland Security “broad authority … to construct border barriers and roads ‘to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry,’ and expressly authorized the Secretary ‘to waive all legal requirements’ that he ‘determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.’”

Microsoft, meanwhile, is run by an immigrant and continues to hire many tech workers from India and elsewhere under the H-1B program. This displaces American workers and Microsoft has just announced its attempt to persuade one-quarter of its workforce — a whopping 60,000 employees — to quit in return for a buyout plan.

But workers want a job, not a cheap buyout plan. Fewer than 3,000 of these employees are expected to leave voluntarily, and an axe may fall next.

The Supreme Court set October 29 as the deadline for the plaintiffs who oppose the border wall to respond to Trump’s Solicitor General, who will then have a right to file his reply. This could become the first major decision by the Supreme Court after the upcoming elections.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.