Since Abigail Spanberger became the 75th governor of the Old Dominion, she has sought to make Virginia the new face of the movement for “sanctuary states.” While allegedly agreeing to “comply with federal law” and “cooperate with lawful federal immigration enforcement,” Gov. Spanberger’s recent May 20 Executive Order 16 is yet one more attempt to obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
The order aims to restrict the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at state property, hospitals, schools, and polling locations. This follows upon Spanberger’s very first executive directive, which rescinded all Virginia state agencies’ law enforcement agreements with ICE instituted previously under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. She also recently signed a bill passed by the General Assembly to restrict law enforcement officers from wearing masks. In every way, Spanberger is seeking to obstruct federal immigration enforcement, which only highlights the greater need for federal pressure on Virginia to achieve mass deportations of illegal aliens and basic protection for American citizens.
In her Executive Order 16, Spanberger claimed, “Kids in elementary school are afraid to get on the bus, neighbors fear being targeted based on their appearance at the grocery store, and workers are not showing up at their jobs.” This misleading emotional appeal echoes astounding remarks made on May 14 by the Cato Institute’s David Bier. Bier exhorted the Trump administration to “give up on the mass deportation fantasy” and claimed that “about one in five Fairfax residents is someone who could be deported or who lives with them. It would destroy neighborhoods, rip Americans away from their spouses, parents, friends, families, customers, employees, employers, nurses, nannies, and teachers.”
If true, this shocking statistic highlights the issue that we do not even accurately know the true number of illegal aliens residing in the United States, though the number is surely higher than any official estimates issued by politicians and think tanks over the past few decades.
While warning about the devastating personal and economic consequences of mass deportations, antagonists like Spanberger and Bier make no attempt to distinguish between American citizens and noncitizen illegal aliens. What “Americans” are they talking about who will be jeopardized by immigration enforcement? Even for those aliens previously granted Temporary Protected Status or immigration parole, the federal government can revoke that — as the Trump administration has sought to do — which means they can also be removed from the country. The emotional appeal against immigration enforcement relies on the belief that once someone steps foot on American soil, he has an indelible right to remain here, regardless of his citizenship, history, or ancestry.
According to Bier, we cannot enforce federal immigration law and achieve mass deportations simply because we have too many lawbreakers already here. If anything, such claims should have the opposite effect of that intended: to demonstrate the radical need for law enforcement, rather than discourage any attempts to deport illegals.