Obama’s Unprecedented Unconstitutional Executive Order

The Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, states that, through legislation, only Congress has the power to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization ….”, meaning Obama’s executive order, outlined in his speech tonight, granting some 5 million illegal aliens a blanket amnesty is unconstitutional. Under that same Constitution, Article II, Sec. 3, presidents are required to “faithfully execute” — enforce — the laws Congress passes, yet Congress hasn’t passed any laws granting 5 million illegals blanket amnesty. In fact, Congress has refused to pass such laws.

Some Democrats are claiming that Obama’s actions mirror those are of two past presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who also enacted immigration amnesty policies. Except that Reagan and Bush worked with Congress to pass and implement immigration legislation, while Obama is ignoring Congress altogether.

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration and Reform Control Act [IRCA], which gave general amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. A year later, Reagan’s Justice Department issued a memorandum allowing the INS to defer deportation where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” — in particular, deferring the deportation of children whose parents had been granted amnesty. This commonsense goal was to avoid breaking up families, and it was done on a case-by-case basis, which immigration policy allows. That isn’t defying Congress. That is working with Congress to sensibly implement an amnesty law Congress passed.

The Bush administration implemented an expanded policy that deferred deportation of both spouses and children of illegal immigrants, allowing them to seek naturalization through the IRCA amnesty. Again, the goal was to keep families intact, and Bush then worked with Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1990, which made these protections permanent. That isn’t defying or ignoring Congress. It’s working with Congress.

Obama supporters also note that past presidents have unilaterally granted amnesty to certain groups, but they were all prompted by special circumstances that were in compliance with established immigration policies. For example, our immigration laws can give foreigners a temporary protected status when their home country has suffered a natural disaster, or, for political reasons, foreigners returning home would be arrested and incarcerated. After the Chinese government cracked down on protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989, for example, President Bush granted temporary protection for Chinese nationals whose return to China would have resulted in arrest.

This is worlds apart from issuing a blanket amnesty that is in blatant defiance of a Congress that has several times refused to pass the very immigration amnesty policy that Obama’s executive order will put in place.

After the shellacking his party took in the recent midterm elections, Obama told reporters the message he took from that is that both parties must work more closely together. He’s not off to a very good start.