For a couple of days now, I’ve had a video sitting in my inbox about a huge pro-illegal alien protest in Los Angeles. On the one hand, it shows that illegal aliens and their supporters are worried about Trump’s administration, as they should be. But on the other hand, what’s so striking about the video is the sense of entitlement. As far as the illegal aliens and their leftist allies are concerned, coming to America is a right. It isn’t, and the Supreme Court has said so in no uncertain terms—terms that deserve to be committed to memory.

What struck me most about the video was the illegal alien woman saying, “my own rights are at risk.” Indeed, that’s the entire tone of the pro-illegal immigration protests, whether they’re demanding sanctuary cities, opposing deportation, or facilitating illegal aliens. Illegal aliens, they insist, have the right to be in America.

But the reality is that there is no right for someone to come to America. In 1950, in a case that was much more sympathetic than anything happening today as illegal aliens strut across our open border, the Supreme Court established that there is no right to immigrate to America.

In United States ex. rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, the Supreme Court was called upon to determine whether “the United States [may] exclude without hearing, solely upon a finding by the Attorney General that her admission would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States, the alien wife of a citizen who had served honorably in the armed forces of the United States during World War II.”

The answer was “yes.” This was a decision with far-reaching implications at the time because it addressed the fact that many American troops returned from overseas with foreign-born wives.

Mrs. Knauff had been born in Germany but lived in Czechoslovakia when Hitler came to power. In 1939, she went to England as a refugee. While there, she served in the Royal Air Force for over three years. Following her discharge, she worked as a civilian for the U.S. War Department in Germany.

In 1948, she married Kurt Knauff, a German who had become a naturalized citizen, had served honorably in the U.S. Army during WWII, and was working as a civilian employee for the Army in Frankfurt when the two got married. The Commanding General in Frankfurt signed off on Mr. and Mrs. Knauff’s marriage.

Superficially, Mrs. Knauff appeared to be an absolute model of what America should want in its immigrants. She was not some drug cartel member slipping illegally into America. Although she was a German married to a naturalized, German-born American citizen, both had served in the military against the Nazis during WWII and worked for the American military after WWII.

Nevertheless, when Mrs. Knauff attempted to enter the U.S. in 1948, “the Assistant Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization recommended that she be permanently excluded without a hearing on the ground that her admission would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States.” The Attorney General adopted this recommendation, and the Supreme Court confirmed that, under the existing law, he had that power.

The power upon which the Attorney General relied was the power Congress gave the president in 1918 and again in 1941 to exclude people when the interests of the United States required him to do so. The Attorney General acted as the president’s agent in this regard.

That statute was repealed in 1952, so I don’t cite the case to argue that this is controlling law. However, while 22 U.S.C. § 223 is gone, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) still exists, and it essentially says the same thing. Section 1182 covers “inadmissible aliens,” and at subsection (f), it states as follows:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

That’s pretty comprehensive, and it aligns perfectly with the president’s plenary constitutional power over matters affecting national security.  

But again, I’m not arguing the statute or presidential power. Instead, what I’d like to highlight is something much more profound about immigration itself, and it’s this language:

At the outset we wish to point out that an alien who seeks admission to this country may not do so under any claim of right. Admission of aliens to the United States is a privilege granted by the sovereign United States Government. Such privilege is granted to an alien only upon such terms as the United States shall prescribe. It must be exercised in accordance with the procedure which the United States provides. [Citations omitted.]

The Supreme Court, in 1892’s Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, one of the cases on which the Knauff court relied, said the same, although it made the point even more broadly:

It is an accepted maxim of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe. [Citations omitted.] In the United States this power is vested in the national government, to which the Constitution has committed the entire control of international relations, in peace as well as in war. It belongs to the political department of the government, and may be exercised either through treaties made by the President and Senate, or through statutes enacted by Congress, upon whom the Constitution has conferred power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, including the entrance of ships, the importation of goods and the bringing of persons into the ports of the United States; to establish a uniform rule of naturalization; to declare war, and to provide and maintain armies and navies; and to make all laws which may be necessary and proper for carrying into effect these powers and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof. [Citations omitted.]

Those two cases should be the alpha and omega of the illegal immigrant debate, the end and the beginning, the ig to zack. Illegal aliens have no “right” to be here. Immigration is a pure privilege that the government can “giveth,” and the government can “taketh away.”

The 21 million illegal aliens already here need to go, whether voluntarily or not—and their allies on the left, the ones daily violating American law to help illegal aliens come here and then keep them here, need to be prosecuted. I would start with the politicians and work my way down.

Image of ICE readying an illegal alien for deportation by Picryl.