Next month the Supreme Court will hear arguments over the case of United States v. Texas, potentially deciding the fate of Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program. This particular flavor of amnesty has been on hold since a lower court ruled it to be outside the president’s constitutional powers. In anticipation of the likely contentious hearing, supporters on both sides of the argument have been filing Friend of the Court briefs to strengthen their side of the fight. One such filing was recently offered by a group of California business, religious and political leaders seeking to influence the court’s decision in favor of moving the program forward and the reasons they offer should provide a stark contrast between Democratic politics and the Constitution. (Yahoo News)

And along with about 25 percent of the legal immigrant population, California is also home to roughly a quarter of the country’s undocumented immigrants. The group estimates this population to be 2.9 million people – more than seven percent of the state’s entire population.

“Representing just 7% of the state’s population, [they] make up 34% of its farm workers, 22% of its production workers and 21% of its construction workers according to one estimate,” the group wrote in their friend-of-the court brief. “Today, the undocumented workforce alone contributes $130 billion to California’s gross domestic product (GDP) – an amount larger than the entire respective GDPs of 19 other states.”

This is a remarkable admission and it’s offered with absolutely no apologies. First of all, it’s worth noting that roughly one quarter of all the illegal aliens in the country are to be found in a single state: California. For those looking to isolate this problem and deport criminal interlopers, this makes the challenge at least somewhat more contained and feasible, assuming you could ever get California to abandon their scofflaw “sanctuary state” ways and help enforce the law.

But more to the point, the authors of this missive proudly admit that the illegals comprise a very significant portion of their workforce. What’s not mentioned in the love letter to the Supreme Court is the fact that each one of those people is working illegally, engaging in fraud regarding their documentation and highlighting the fact that each and every one of the employers providing paychecks to the illegal workers is also breaking the law. As I’ve previously said here until I was blue in the face, if you want to reduce the illegal immigration problem you need to remove the incentive for people to come here in violation of the law. If those roughly three million jobs were not available you would likely not have that volume of criminals “contributing” to the California economy.

So who were these “leaders” who penned the note? One name near the top of the list will be familiar to most of you.

The brief was signed by Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California, as well as the chancellors from all 10 campuses.

There you have it. One of the key authors of this endorsement of lawlessness is none other than Barack Obama’s former Secretary of Homeland Security. In case you were sick that day during civics class, DHS is in charge of the Border Patrol and ICE. And this is the attitude of the person President Obama put in charge of the task.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The rats aren’t abandoning the sinking ship because they’re the ones who were in charge of it.