Donald Trump was elected to secure the border and deport the millions of immigrants who have entered our country illegally, period. Anyone in his administration who thinks otherwise or tries to backtrack on that fundamental promise is mistaken.
There are many differences between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as political leaders, but none is as stark – or as important – as the difference between the two on the matter of enforcing our nation’s laws, most particularly our nation’s immigration laws.
President Trump is committed to strict enforcement of the law. Biden was just as determined to find ways to avoid enforcing the law.
The result of Biden’s decision not to enforce the law was clear for all to see – for four years, we had a crisis, as more than 10 million aliens entered our country illegally.
That crisis began at the southern border, but quickly spread inland, as the aliens who entered illegally moved to major urban areas like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles – and Charlotte, and Atlanta, and Phoenix.
Within a few short years, illegal aliens had spread so far and wide that every state was a border state.
Biden’s illegal aliens overwhelmed schools and hospitals and legal systems and required housing and food. State and local governments and charities were swamped, even as American citizens who depended on those services were forced to make room for the newcomers whose first act on American soil was to break the law.
Estimates of the financial cost to American taxpayers vary, but a report cited last year by the House Budget Committee set the price tag at $150.7 billion. And because the vast majority of those costs fell on state and local governments, which do not have the power to print money and which must actually balance their budgets, that meant one of two things had to happen – either they had to raise taxes or they had to cut services elsewhere.
Of course, there’s a much larger cost than the simple financial cost. That’s the cost to our entire system caused by the failure to enforce the law – think of it as a larger, nationwide application of what sociologist James Q. Wilson called the “broken windows” theory, which used broken windows in a neighborhood as a metaphor for disorder – if authorities allow broken windows and don’t fix them quickly, a message is sent that authorities don’t care about maintaining order, and in short order more serious crime will occur and general disorder will prevail.
That’s exactly what happened under Biden. In every sector of society, he and his administration weakened the rule of law.
The rule of law was weakened when Biden’s administration tried to infringe on property rights by ordering that landlords could not evict tenants who had failed to pay their rent, a policy later rightfully struck down by the Supreme Court.
The rule of law was weakened when Biden’s administration tried to “cancel” hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt, a maneuver that was also later rightfully struck down by the Supreme Court.
And the rule of law was weakened when Biden’s administration failed to enforce the immigration laws and then lied about it to Congress.
A system based on the rule of law requires that all the laws must be followed and all the laws must be enforced.
If political leaders are allowed to pick and choose which laws they will enforce and which they will not, we no longer have a system based on the rule of law – we have a system based on the rule of men, which is exactly what our Founders were trying so hard to avoid.
One of the defining strengths of the American experiment has been its commitment to the rule of law, a system that applies equally to president and pauper. Without it, the Constitution is reduced to parchment. Without it, markets lose credibility, contracts become meaningless, and government power – unchecked – becomes a threat, rather than a guardian.
The rule of law is so important to the American experience that a question on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Naturalization Test asks simply, “What is the ‘rule of law’?” Four answers are acceptable: “Everyone must follow the law”; “Leaders must obey the law”; “Government must obey the law”; and “No one is above the law.”
John Adams once said we are “a government of laws, not of men.” That was a radical idea at the time, and it remains revolutionary today. The rule of law is what separates a constitutional republic from mob rule or tyranny. To defend it is not to pick a side in today’s political battles, it is to rise above them.
On Jan. 20, 2025, shortly after being sworn in for his second term, President Trump signed an executive order entitled, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” in which he declared that, “Enforcing our Nation’s immigration laws is critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States … This order ensures that the Federal Government protects the American people by faithfully executing the immigration laws of the United States … It is the policy of the United States to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens, particularly those aliens who threaten the safety or security of the American people.”
In signing that executive order, President Trump made clear that he was overturning the policy of the previous administration and was directing that in his administration the rule of law would be enforced.
In overturning Biden’s lawlessness, President Trump is doing more than reversing the illegal immigration crisis in the country; he is systematically restoring the rule of law.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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