https://victorhanson.com/the-subordinate-citizen/
... The Biden Administration blasted the Trump southern border wall and canceled all further funding.
Yet it just appropriated $40 billion to Ukraine to ensure that it does not lose its border war against Russian aggression.
That is a tiny percentage of the federal budget. But the aid is full of symbolic irony, nonetheless. The multibillion-dollar appropriation would have more than covered the completion of the entire wall along our own southern border.
An outside observer might conclude that the U.S. government intends to uphold the universal idea of national sovereignty, internationally recognized borders, and the security of citizens inside their own country—as long as they are not American citizens.
There are currently over 550 “sanctuary” jurisdictions established by state and local governments. They aim to prevent federal immigration authorities from deporting illegal aliens, including tens of thousands detained by law enforcement for committing additional crimes.
The nation has not experienced such blatant nullifications of federal laws since the efforts of pre-Civil War Southern states—or the 1960s southern governors who defied federal efforts to enforce U.S. civil rights legislation.
So, can any citizens now simply vote to declare their hometown or local county immune from federal legislation?
That is, can a city or county nullify as it pleases the IRS tax code, endangered species laws, or federal gun registration legislation?
Or is nullification only permissible in the interest of non-citizens and lawbreakers?
These asymmetries also transcend noncitizens.
We have developed entire classes of American elite citizens who are not subject to the enforcement of the law—at least as it is applied to others either less influential or ideologically incorrect.