Sanctuary cities and states are alienating the American citizenry

The United States District Court judges technically work for the U.S. Department of Justice yet have an incredible amount of autonomous power. The most recent example is the decision from Friday, November 17, 2017.

The Seventh Circuit, comprised of the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, has several districts within its geographical boundary, the busiest within the Northern District of Illinois.

It has 40 available bench or judgeship positions, 30 of which are all located in Chicago, Illinois. When just one such judge can make a decision that affects an entire country, the political system which produced such an outcome seems flawed.

The operative phrase of recent years of "legislating from the bench" becomes very palpable in terms of too much concentrated power residing in the hands of a single appointee. Indeed, one of the key talking points in summation of this particular judge's decision was that The Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) overstepped his authority, at least as such authority disregards the city of Chicago's perspective.

Presidential authority vs. judicial branch

President Trump's executive orders (hereafter EOs) thus far this year do not have even a poor batting average, at least the more recent ones. Whether they (EOs) have been critiqued to the nth degree or blocked altogether, President Trump's EOs are probably going to be scrutinized like never before.

Nonetheless, there is a long history of EOs which met with little to no resistance. Legal and political pundits argue that that was because such EOs were not so broad-ranging or broad in their applicability whatsoever. This author argues that there was a deafening silence due to lack of judicial activism during President Clinton's issuance of the most broad-ranging EO possibly ever, in U.S.

presidential history.

Where were the judicial activist judges when "The Grand-Staircase--Escalante National Monument" EO was issued? It was the largest -- for lack of a better term -- land-grab in U.S. history. The impact(s) were 2 million some-odd acres frozen from natural-resource development, most of them located in a large swath of southeastern Utah. Some geological estimates put the oil reserves, albeit, requiring future technological improvement, at a level rivaling Saudi Arabia.

No one holding the title of U.S. District Court Federal Judge denounced the impact such a move would have on the nation in 1999. In terms of looking forward past the time when the cost per gallon of gas was $1.91 in 1999, myopic judicial activism was glaringly absent.

Or was it? Gas was going to be cheap forever, or so everyone thought when oil fell to some all-time lows rivaling the levels of pre-Gulf War I. Then there was a sudden spike in price which many said would never fall below ever again. Say this to those taking many road trips during the summer seasons of 1998 and 1999, and they'll tell you those so-called futures' experts were way-off...at least for a while. Judicial decisions which have a long-standing impact based on short-term, cyclical, economic, and dare-we-say, political influences, are a fool's folly.

Civility vs. acrimony

President Trump's EOs and the seemingly immutable, visceral responses they evoke are not so much the issue as it is Congress' of yesteryear not performing their best job -- not just their job via their constituents -- even a decent job.

Is this even possible? Congressional efficiency precluding the need for presidential EOs? In the United States, Congressional approval ratings are at all-time highs in terms of low approval for a reason.

Look, this author as an American citizen is all about the preamble to the original Constitution: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, domestic tranquility..." The citizens of the United States welcome legal immigration, but when some states spend an inordinate amount of their time and resources not focused on its citizens, both original and naturalized, tranquility suffers. One judge, out of the previously listed pool of judges in just Chicago, should not be able to dictate to the entire country that sanctuary cities are eligible into perpetuity, to receive federal funds despite their policies subverting the federal government's vested authority, from we the people, in maintaining established justice. Alas, the acrimonious debates sans civility may simply continue to escalate.