Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has once again doubled down on her promise to label the issues along the southern border of the United States an outright “invasion” if she takes office.
While speaking this past Sunday on a segment of CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Lake stated that the massive influx of illegal immigrants flooding across the southern border and the extreme amount of deadly fentanyl being sent across the border warrants the seemingly extreme label. Due to this, Lake stated that she would make use of her power to call in assistance from other states to assist in securing the border.
“[I]f you know the Constitution, you know that Article 4, Section 4 calls for the federal government to protect us from invasion, and under Joe Biden’s lack of leadership, we just aren’t seeing that,” explained Lake. “And we have an invasion at our border, the cartels, these narco-terrorist groups have operational control. And they’re using Arizona to smuggle people, to traffic children and to traffic the most dangerous drug we’ve ever seen, fentanyl.”
“And so we’re going to invoke our Article One, Section 10– authority to take care of our own border and protect our own border,” she went on to say. “It’s right there in black and white in the Constitution. And we meet all three criteria, we have an invasion, our people are in imminent danger, and time is of the essence. There’s no time for delay. So we’re going to have other states offer help. I’ve already got a couple other governors who are willing to help out.”
As stated by Article 4, Section4 of the Constitution, the federal government “shall protect each of them against Invasion.” In the same vein, Article 1, Section 10 of the same document blocks individual states from going “into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or [engaging] in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
As seen on her campaign website under the issues section, Lake made the promise to set up a compact with many other states to outright declare what’s going on along the southern before an invasion and create their right to band together to defend and secure it.
“[M]ake no mistake: with nearly two million illegal immigrant apprehensions this past year and another estimated 400,000 that evaded border patrol agents, courtesy of violent international drug cartels operating inside northern Mexico, this is an invasion,” reads the campaign web site.