Former Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich again on Tuesday argued the constitutional authority given to states for self-defense.
Brnovich testified at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing addressing the issue after being the first and only state attorney general to issue a formal legal opinion that defines an invasion and lays out the constitutional authority of states’ self-defense.
Other testimony was presented by representatives of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the ACLU.
Brnovich’s testimony reiterated arguments from his legal opinion defining an invasion and Arizona’s right to self-defense under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
The opinion, published on Feb. 7, 2022, was instrumental to three Texas counties being the first in the country to declare an invasion on July 5, 2022. Despite numerous calls for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue a similar opinion, he did not. Paxton's first assistant, Brent Webster, who also testified on Tuesday, previously argued counties declaring an invasion were “short-sighted” and “the Mexican army wasn’t invading our country.”
Retired FBI counterintelligence experts have argued the opposite after millions of single military-age men have poured through the southern border wearing camouflage, carrying weapons and fentanyl, saying they constitute a “soft invasion.” They overwhelmingly outnumber U.S. Army companies (100 soldiers), battalions (1,000), brigades (5,000), divisions (15,000) and corps (45,000)
“In its modern history, the U.S. has never suffered an invasion of the homeland, and, yet, one is unfolding now,” they warned Congress. “Military age men from across the globe, many from countries or regions not friendly to the United States, are landing in waves on our soil by the thousands – not by splashing ashore from a ship or parachuting from a plane but rather by foot across a border that has been accurately advertised around the world as largely unprotected with ready access granted.”
Former active-duty Navy JAG and General Counsel for Citizens Defending Freedom, Jonathan Hullihan, challenged Webster’s argument, arguing Texas is under invasion by transnational criminal organizations using nontraditional warfare. While Paxton’s office has focused on immigration case law, Hullihan and others argue the issue facing Texas is about national security and constitutional authority, not immigration enforcement.
