There's a tyrant afoot - but it's not Trump

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net

There is a tyrant loose in America, but it's not, as liberals would have you believe, Donald Trump. It's the federal judiciary, which has zero authority – as in zip, nada, zilch – over immigration policy. The Constitution confers every bit of authority in immigration to Congress and the president, and absolutely none to judges. You could look it up.

Article I, Section 9 gives to Congress unilateral, unquestioned, unchallengeable authority to admit to our shores only those it "shall think proper to admit." If Congress doesn't think they should come in, they don't get to come in, regardless of what unelected oligarchs think about the matter.

Although vice-president Mike Pence said over the weekend the courts "certainly" have the right to set immigration policy for the United States, he was wrong. They precisely and emphatically do not.

Congress by statute has authorized the president (NOT the court) to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens" whose entry HE (NOT the court) determines "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States." He doesn't need to go to Congress or any court in the land for permission. He can prohibit their entry "by proclamation." And he can do it for as long as "he shall deem necessary."

Besides which, if America is as bad as liberals say it is, Trump is doing Muslims a favor by telling them to stay home, is he not?

And let's not kid ourselves about the genuine threat devout Muslims pose to our safety and security. Three Muslims who for some reason were working for the House INTELLIGENCE Committee had to be fired over the weekend for security breaches.

This provision of the law that allows the president to suspend immigration is plain, unambiguous, and still in force. It is the law of the land, right here, right now. If the president thinks unvetted refugees from Syria represent a danger to the United States, he can deny them entry as long as he wants. If thinks immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations wracked with jihadi violence represent a danger, he can deny them entry as long as he wants.

And there is not one, single, solitary thing any court in the land can constitutionally and legally do about it.

So how do they get away with it? Because we let them.

A single federal judge in Washington, entirely without any constitutional or legal authorization, blocked the president's travel ban. This judge, Bush appointee or not, is not as conservative as people think. He once vocally supported "Black Lives Matter" from the bench. (His new slogan apparently is "Jihadi Lives Matter.") When the Trump administration appealed his ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it backed him up.

And then president told the entire executive branch, over which the courts have no statutory authority, to stand down. He didn't have to.

The tyrant here is the court, not the president. The president is following the Constitution and the law and doing his job. It's the courts who are rejecting the Constitution and the law and imposing their own misbegotten and misguided will on the American people. They are substituting their own self-righteous impulses and political preferences for the rule of law. That is the very definition of tyranny. If anybody is a fascist in this scenario, it's the court and not Donald Trump.

(It's worthy of note that the Washington attorney general who went to court to block the travel ban is the same attorney general who is trying to bankrupt a Christian florist, take her house, and leave her sitting on the curb with nothing for running her business according to her religious convictions about natural marriage. He's just an all-around bad actor.)

Donald Trump took an oath to uphold the Constitution. He never took an oath to uphold the opinion of a renegade, out of control, unaccountable activist judge or panel of judges. He would be well within his constitutional rights simply to ignore this ruling and instruct the members of the executive branch to implement the ban as he issued it. Would they follow his instructions? Well, he can fire them but the courts can't.

If he followed the Constitution rather than these "so-called" judges, what could they do about it? Precisely nothing. They are bound down by the chains of the Constitution and have no police power whatsoever. They are only tyrants and bullies because we let them get away with it.

Perhaps it's time for President Trump to put these bullies in their place and ignore them. Perhaps it's time for him to fulfill his oath of office and protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic whether the court likes it or not. Perhaps it's time for him to remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, which Thomas Jefferson put on his own personal seal: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

Perhaps it's time for a little rebellion against these unelected black-robed tyrannical autocrats.

Perhaps it's time for President Trump to direct the members of the executive branch – who work for him and the American people and not for federal judges – to just do their jobs, implement his immigration directive, and keep America safe. From both Muslim terrorists and tyrannical judges.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer