WaPo: Scope Of Obama's Amnesty Order "Unprecedented"

by JASmius



Really?  You don't say:

As early as next week, President Barack Obama is expected to issue an executive order to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, a use of power that would be unprecedented in U.S. history.

According to the Washington Post, presidents for the last forty years have had broad authority over how the country deals with illegal immigration.

But Obama's intent to bypass Congress and make new laws could be an outright violation of his constitutional oath to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," the Post [!!!] said.

"Can a President who wants tax cuts that a recalcitrant Congress will not enact decline to enforce the income tax laws? Can a President effectively repeal the environmental laws by refusing to sue polluters, or workplace and labor laws by refusing to fine violators?" wrote  University of St. Thomas law professor Robert Delahunty and University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo in the Texas Law Review.

If that POTUS is Barack Hussein Obama, then (and you knew this was coming) "Yes!  He!  Can!"  In fact, he is obligated to do so.

Just ask him.

And before he gets to the part about there being a supposed "precedent" for amnesty by unconstitutional Executive diktat, as the WaPo did....:

As early as 1986, former President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to three million people who had come to the United States before 1982, and he subsequently decided to allow 1.5 million spouses and children stay. Their exemption from deportation was ultimately made law under former president George W.H. Bush, according to the Post.

....recall one crucially important difference: the 1986 amnesty was not an illegal Executive decree, but an act of Congress signed (foolishly) into law by President Reagan, under the auspices of which Bush41 (also foolishly) permanentized amnesty for a million and a half more illegals.  There is no such act of Congress under the auspices of which Barack Obama is acting; to the contrary, he's openly declaring that he's acting because there is no such act of Congress.  And that is plainly, simply, and "unprecedentedly" illegal and unconstitutional.

Period.

Will it stick? The WaPo hopes thinks so:

Regardless, it appears that the president is banking on the fact that Congress will do little to stop him, the Post said.

Congress has few tools at its disposal to stop the president's action from going into effect. It has the ability to pass legislation that would cancel any executive action or prevent funding to implement the new regulations.

Um, counter-legislation, defunding, and impeachment ARE the constitutional tools Congress possesses to stop "the president's" action.  Or at least, they could stop an American president, anyway.  But then, if Barack Obama were an American president, he wouldn't be engaging in an "unprecedented" act of despotism, now, would he?

So the question is not can Congress stop Barack Obama, but will they make the (likely futile) attempt?  Because that is what the Republican majorities have been elected to do.