(Battle)Field of DREAMs

Governor Rick Perry is telling President Barack Obama to "Come and Take It" over the illegal immigrants now referred to as DREAMers.

As you may recall, President Obama issued an unconstitutional order instituting the already-defeated-in-congress Federal DREAM Act by executive fiat.  In response, Governor Perry has issued an order to State agencies: Do not comply.  He has ordered that State agencies continue to verify eligibility for State and Local benefits.

Liberals and Big Government types (BIRM) are all agog over this.  Ignoring the fact that ICE and CBP have said they have been specifically forbidden from verifying claims of putative DREAMers, they harp on the fact that Obama "said" he wasn't changing the law, just priorities.  Of course, Obama also "said" he was against an individual mandate, and he "said" that he would Close Guantanamo Bay.  We see how those worked out.

And the fact remains that this is a Federalism question.  Certainly ICE can choose not to deport anyone they desire, for whatever reason they decide.  The Governor's order doesn't change that one bit.  What his order does is to prevent illegal aliens from receiving more social benefits than they already do (and that's a big amount), and it makes it just a little bit harder for them to vote. 

Before anyone attempts to dismiss that, I'll direct them to look at Florida, who have been sued by the Department of Justice for attempting to purge their voter rolls of illegal aliens.

So the real question here is this: does the Federal Government have the right to instruct States to render State benefits to illegal aliens?  Nothing in the Constitution suggests it does.  If ICE wants to let illegal aliens stay in country, and grant them de facto amnesty, that's up to the Federal Government.  That doesn't mean Texas has to help, or to provide any benefits or services we wouldn't provide to illegals in the first place.