Illegal Immigration Fueling State Secession Movements, Though It’s Not the Only Big Issue

Nearly two centuries ago, the idea of states breaking away from the union was put to rest on the battlefield, only to be resurrected and fought once again in the political arena in 2024.

Support for secession movements in the United States appears to be growing in border states like Texas, California, and even New Hampshire, according to members of these movements.

One of the main driving issues is the nation’s worsening border crisis and illegal immigration and the crimes associated with them.

Official figures estimate more than 7 million illegal immigrants crossed into the United States since Democrat President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Self-proclaimed “sanctuary cities,” like New York City and Denver, are now finding themselves stretched beyond capacity while struggling to accommodate hundreds of new illegal immigrants.

Many more so-called “newcomers” have left metropolitan hospitals saddled with billions in unpaid medical bills.

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To make matters worse, among illegal immigrants there are violent gang members and brutal assaults against citizens and police officers committed by illegal immigrants.

The nonprofit American Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) says that illegal immigration is often characterized as a “victimless crime” or is “downplayed by asserting that most charges are for non-violent crimes.”

“This simplistic approach shows a callousness towards the victims of crimes perpetrated by some unlawfully present foreign nationals and ignores the real threat posed by criminal illegal aliens,” FAIR wrote on its website.

“While it is true that most of the approximately 16.8 million illegal aliens in the United States do not commit serious crimes [murder, rape, or assault], providing those who do with protection [offered] by sanctuary policies or blanket amnesty can have fatal consequences.

“It is important to remember that a crime committed by an illegal alien is a preventable crime.”

On Oct. 30, 2020, President Donald Trump proclaimed a “National Day of Remembrance’ for Americans killed by illegal aliens in 2020.

“On this National Day of Remembrance, we pause to honor the memory of every American life so egregiously taken from us by criminal illegal aliens,” President Trump wrote.

“As sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and as American citizens, these precious lives are an irreplaceable piece of our national community.

“We solemnly stand with their families—our Angel Families—who have endured what no American family should ever have to suffer.”

On March 15 of this year, an illegal Haitian immigrant—twice vetted by state authorities—allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl in Rockland, Massachusetts, on Boston’s South Shore.

Support for Secession Growing

Observers say these reports only galvanize support for states to take matters into their own hands.

One nationwide poll conducted in 2021, for example, found that 37 percent of those questioned expressed a “willingness to secede” from the union.

That sentiment has been especially strong in Texas, a former independent republic that broke from Mexico in 1836 before it was annexed by the United States a century later.

“I think what’s happening, particularly with the border and immigration crisis, is that it’s strengthening the resolve of Texans,” says Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“It’s moving the needle for those people that were undecided” about state secession.

Mr. Miller said the reason for increasing support “is simple.”

He said illegal immigration has become the most “publicly visible sign that the federal government is terminally broken—that it cannot be fixed.”

“As such, what you see is people looking at the [secession] issue and saying it makes more sense than it ever has,” he said.

Mr. Miller said the grassroots TNM launched in 2005, believing that state secession would be a long shot.

Now, Texans in growing numbers tend to view the government in Washington, as more “tyrannical” than out of touch, he said.

“It’s very clear that Texans want the vote in sufficient numbers that it justifies calling for a vote. Let’s decide this one way or another—once and for all,” Mr. Miller said.

He admits it’s an uphill battle.

In December 2023, the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) rejected a 140,000-signature petition from the movement to place a non-binding referendum question on the 2024 primary ballot.

The petition asked whether Texas should “reassert its status” as an independent nation and go its own way.

In a Dec. 23 letter to Mr. Miller, the RPT said the petition failed to meet two important requirements for voter petitions—“specifically that all voter petitions must be timely filed and contain valid signatures.”

The letter claimed the “vast majority” of signatures were invalid, and that an estimated 8,300 of the 139,000 signatures were in the signer’s handwriting.

The petition required 97,709 valid signatures to place the question of Texas secession on the 2024 primary ballot. The TNM is challenging the decision in court, Mr. Miller said.

The movement, meanwhile, is calling on Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, to schedule a special session to put the ballot question to a statewide vote this year.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Abbott has yet to respond to their request.

Should the question come to a vote and Texans vote “yes” to state secession—Texit, as it is called—Mr. Miller said the next step would be to form a joint legislative committee to lay out a plan to “make it happen.”

The process would include discussions and reaching agreements on constitutional and legal issues, forging international covenants, and negotiating points of contention with the federal government.

Ideally, that’s how the process would play out if all sides agreed to meet at the bargaining table, Mr. Miller said.

“I know what a temper tantrum looks like. This really has nothing to do with [federal officials]. It’s really about what the people of Texas want,” he said.

“As we go through that process, they’ll have that opportunity to be petulant little children—the federal government, I mean, at the negotiating table.

“But that doesn’t deter us, distract us, or dissuade us in any shape or fashion from making Texas independent as the people of Texas want.”

State’s Rights Versus Federal ‘Overreach’

Other states, like Hawaii and Utah, have asserted their sovereignty in matters involving the U.S. Constitution and the perceived overreach of the federal government.

In February, Hawaii’s highest court ruled that the state’s “spirit of Aloha” overrides the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the constitutional right to bear arms.

“Article 1, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court,” according to the Hawaii Supreme Court Decision.

“We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”

Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins, wrote: “The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”

In late February, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, signed the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act” into law as a legislative bulwark against federal overreach.

The bill, SB 57, enables state lawmakers to sidestep the federal government if it appears its mandates violate Utah’s sovereignty under the U.S. Constitution.

“Far too often, we’ve seen the federal executive branch bypass the legislative process to enact policies that extend beyond its constitutionally given jurisdiction, frequently to the detriment of Utah’s citizens,” wrote the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Scott Sandall.

In New Hampshire, state lawmakers rejected a constitutional amendment that would trigger state secession should the national debt reach $40 trillion.

The current national debt is $34.49 trillion and is expected to grow quarterly by an additional $1 trillion at present spending levels.

“While many legal scholars say that the U.S. Constitution does not give states a right to secede, 26 percent of Americans disagree, believing that it does include such a right,” according to YouGov.com in a recent nationwide online poll of 35,307 adults.

The survey found that 35 percent believed there is no right to secession; 39 percent, however, “aren’t sure.”

“In nearly all the states included in our analysis, support for secession is higher among Republicans than among Democrats.

“In California, New Jersey, and Minnesota, however, Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to favor secession.”

The survey found that secession was most popular in Alaska (36 percent), followed by Texas (31 percent) and California (29 percent).

A California secession movement known as “Yes California” proposes the state’s geographic breakup to avoid a “civil war” through a ballot measured called CalExit 3.1.

The proposal seeks to split California along political lines as a peaceful alternative to open conflict.

“So right now we’re more working on the concept of national divorce as an alternative to potential civil violence and civil war in the country,” the group’s 2015 founder, conservative activist Louis Marinelli told Newsweek.

“Our belief is that there’s a lot of growing political violence and political problems in the country that may lead to fighting in the streets, civil war too, some people are calling for.”

The Greater Idaho Movement (GIM), on the other hand, hopes to bring as many as 15 eastern Oregon counties into Idaho’s borders and end the political division and gridlock in liberal Oregon.

GIM spokesman Matt McCaw said illegal immigration has not been a deciding factor for the movement, although people are concerned about events unfolding in Texas.

“As to illegal immigration, I don’t know that you could say that we’ve seen much impact on our movement to date. The one thing that did seem to get people talking was with the whole Texas situation and the red state governors who came out in support of Texas’ actions,” Mr. McCaw told The Epoch Times.

“Most people in eastern Oregon agreed with them, and seeing Gov. [Brad] Little from Idaho respond in support of Texas while [Democrat Gov. Tina Kotek] remained silent was telling. Overall, though, we haven’t had the issue of immigration come up a lot in our conversations with people.”

So far, 12 eastern Oregon counties have voted to have their elected leaders explore moving the border with Idaho. Voters in Crook County will decide the issue in a ballot question in May.

Mr. McCaw said last year, the Idaho House passed a memorial, or request, inviting the Oregon legislature to formally begin border talks.

“The Oregon Legislature has not reciprocated,” he said, and the movement decided not to pursue a joint memorial due to the short Oregon legislative session.

Instead, the movement is focusing its efforts on getting a hearing at the Oregon state legislature on why Greater Idaho is “the best solution for Oregon moving forward,” Mr. McCaw said.

The U.S. Congress must agree to the shifting of state lines between Idaho and Oregon if both states vote to approve the merger.

However, Mr. Miller said there is an important distinction between states voting to redraw borders and states voting to break from the union “under the boot heel of the federal government.”

“Things are so polarized in the United States right now, and so much emotion is being invested in the race that no matter which side wins, the other side will do whatever it can to say the election was illegitimate.

“And there are legitimate questions about election integrity the people have, and those people have been dismissed.”

The issue is also one of public perception filtered by the media, which tends to paint the question of Texas secession solely in terms of the border crisis.

“They can’t see the forest for the trees,“ Mr. Miller said. ”It’s not solely about the border issue. It’s about the federal government’s unrelenting and ceaseless attacks on the sovereignty of the state of Texas and intentionally compromising our national security, our public safety, our public health.”

“Across all of those measures, it is them and their attempts to compromise the border between Texas and Mexico that are exposing this fundamental brokenness of the federal system.

“You’re really seeing that reality emerge and the realization that it’s basically the people versus this political establishment. And that’s how it’s going to be fought.

“It’s been amazing,“ Mr. Miller added. ”We’re sitting at the cusp of history. The time that we’re in right now will be written in history books.”