The Left Reimagines the Supremacy ClauseA Washington state lawsuit is part of a larger effort nationwide to make the cost of detaining illegal aliens unsustainable, with the goal of crashing the system.
By Brian Lonergan
March 30, 2022
Whenever a Supreme Court vacancy opens up, we are reminded of the Left’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution as a living and breathing document. Put another way, America’s 233-year-old charter is subject to the editing and revision of nine judges in the most undemocratic of the federal government’s three branches. While the Court is often asked to interpret the Constitution, we are seeing increased pressure from activists and bureaucrats to reshape the Constitution to serve their agendas absent public accountability.
A favorite strategy in this endeavor is to step over the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause as if it were a puddle on a sidewalk.
In Article VI, paragraph two, the Constitution establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, will take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions in cases where there is a conflict. It sounds very clear-cut and unambiguous, right? Not so for the forces of progressivism, who never seem to cool their lust to impose their agenda across all aspects of American society.
The latest example can be seen in Washington state, where a federal district court ruled that a government contractor had to pay its illegal alien and criminal alien detainees the state’s minimum wage of $11.50 per hour for working jobs in the detention facility.
The case is currently awaiting a hearing in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) pointed out in a brief that Congress has set a $1 per day rate for voluntary work by detainees at such facilities, a rate that aligns with the compensation paid to those in federal and state prisons and other facilities across the country. To follow Washington state law in this matter clearly runs afoul of the Supremacy Clause.
This raises some very interesting and legitimate questions. Why should a state law supersede—and undermine—federal law on immigration? Why should those who entered our country illegally be paid more than 10 times what U.S. citizens get while in detention facilities?
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Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/30/the-left-reimagines-the-supremacy-clause/
