The judicial pushback against Trump’s deportation of Tren de Aragua gang members demonstrates the absurdity of our immigration laws when they are divorced from the purpose for which they were written.

Federal Judge James Boasberg’s idea that he can command the president of the United States to turn back deportation flights already in progress is the most extreme example of the outrageous presumption that now prevails in our system. The Trump administration ignored this ridiculous edict, pointing out that the airplanes were over international waters. The judge, in short, was told to go pound sand.

In treating mass immigration like the existential threat it is, President Trump is fighting against the naïve and suicidal liberalism that treats the Constitution like a magic document capable of transforming millions of people from the most backward nations on Earth into Americans just because they have taken an oath to support it. All immigrants, we are told, enrich America and its culture when they come here—even when they come merely to perform low-skill work and receive public benefits. The truth is that these people are not Americans, most of them are not capable of becoming Americans, and indeed many of them do not even want to become Americans. A great many of them just want stuff, and in exchange for our generosity, we are losing our civilization.

The United States deposited the roughly 250 Venezuelan members of the vicious Tren De Aragua gang in El Salvador, where they can expect to be ruled by the rod, rather than indulged with the liberal munificence to which they had grown accustomed over the last four years.

Back in the states, Trump’s critics claim he is threatening “our sacred norms” and fomenting a “constitutional crisis” by refusing to cede his control of the immigration process to an obtuse—and unelected!—jurist. The law Trump used to carry out this operation is the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, one of the first laws Congress passed. Critics have dismissed the Act as archaic, and Trump’s application of it as inappropriate. After all, the U.S. and Venezuela are not in direct conflict.

While America has not been in a conventional war since the 1940s—the last time this law was invoked was to detain Japanese suspected of double loyalties—the need to protect the homeland endures. Nations always have enemies, and their leaders are obligated to deal with enemies appropriately.

Trump is getting back to the basics of political science. He’s short-circuiting “due process” for non-citizens who pose a threat or otherwise give us reason to question their presence here. While some of those who are not fervent Zionists may doubt the administration’s pretexts for the detainment of alleged Hamas sympathizer Mahmoud Kalil, it is still important to note the assertion of the government’s authority to treat citizens differently from non-citizens. For too long, the distinction has been blurred to the advantage of non-citizens.

In the instance of Tren De Aragua, Trump is targeting a foreign, hostile entity that is clearly committed to chaos and disorder on American soil. America may not be in a kinetic war with this gang, but the nature of conflict has changed since 1798. In any case, there is simply no reason to treat foreign gangsters with deference. Neither should we be cowed into respecting a perverse so-called “constitutionalism” that requires such capitulation, even when it comes from a federal judge.

Trump’s actions are draconian, perhaps, but they have grown necessary after a long period of dissolution. The immigration system has long put Americans, at least non-Democratic ones, last. Americans have been squeezed out of the job market, the housing market, and their own ancestral towns and neighborhoods. Under the Biden regency, this invasion began to resemble a war in everything but name. Gangs like Tren De Aragua bloomed like algae, and whole cities buckled under the influx of supposedly benign aliens seeking “a better life”—by taking it forcefully from others.

As in war, civilians have been subjected to a steady diet of propaganda that serves to weaken their resolve. An endless parade of sob stories are rehearsed in public to convince people to surrender their society to foreigners. Americans have been made to feel guilty for wanting to preserve their country.

Under Trump, we’re experiencing a return to common sense in these matters, which means the days of hare-brained liberal legalism are over. What sort of “norm” requires a nation to surrender its borders? What kind of “Constitution” rewards birth tourism, as liberals claim the 14^th Amendment does?

Trump has called for Boasberg to be impeached, accusing the judge of usurping his electoral mandate. “I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” Trump said of his deportation plans. Politically, Trump’s defiance of Judge Boasberg is another winning move in his relentless campaign against wokeness. Americans are likely to respect Trump for taking action to protect their country, even if it annoys the editorial board of The New York Times and Beltway brahmins.