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Presidents Can't Rule by Decree
President Obama's immigration policy violates constitutional order
June 19, 2012
About Mark Krikorian:
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He is the author of The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal and How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration.
There are really two questions here. The first is whether it would be advisable to amnesty long-term illegal immigrants who were brought here as young children; the second is whether the president's unilateral move was an appropriate, or even lawful, means of doing that.
As to the first, I think there is indeed an argument for legalizing certain illegal aliens who have been here since they were infants or toddlers and whose identity has been formed here. But such a measure would have to be very different from the proposed DREAM Act, which also covers people who came as teenagers and which includes no enforcement provisions to ensure we don't just have another DREAM Act 10 years from now.
But the more immediate problem is that the president is violating our constitutional order under the pretext of exercising discretion. Every cop and prosecutor has to use discretion in choosing between two cars to pull over or two cases to take to court. But this latest announcement crosses the line by setting up a sweeping amnesty program for up to 1.4 million illegal immigrants using criteria from proposed legislation that was voted down by Congress. To call this simply an exercise of discretion within existing law is an Orwellian abuse of language.
[See a collection of political cartoons on immigration.]
The specific issue is almost irrelevant—whether immigration or environment or taxes or education, the president doesn't have the right to legislate by decree just because he's displeased with what comes out of Congress. If Congress allows this to stand—and it could simply cut off funds to implement this new policy, if it wanted to—a dangerous precedent will have been set. Suppose a future Republican president is frustrated that a future Democratic Congress won't pass a capital-gains tax cut he has lobbied for; what stops him from simply using "discretion" to not go after those who have chosen to pay the lower rate he supports?
The Constitution says the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." President Barack Obama has essentially proposed an amendment to that clause: "…unless he doesn't feel like it." Even supporters of the DREAM Act amnesty should be deeply disturbed by this erosion of the rule of law.
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- Other Arguments
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#147701852
Yes — President Obama is doing the right thing by halting deportations, but the actual effects of the policy remain to be seen
ALEX NOWRASTEH, Immigration Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute
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#247301887
Yes — The president's policy is good news, but is not a long-term solution to the large immigration problem
TAMAR JACOBY, President of ImmigrationWorks USA
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Yes — Obama's immigration policy makes moral, economic, and political sense
MARSHALL FITZ, Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress
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#419344879
No — Obama oversteps bounds of presidency with dreams of overriding Congress to pass his own policies
MATTHEW SPALDING, Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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No — We need a permanent immigration solution, but Obama's policy has too many unknowns
LUIS ALVARADO, Political Analyst for CNN Español and Telemundo
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No — Obama was threatened by Sen. Marco Rubio's bipartisan reform, so he undermined it
COLIN HANNA, President of Let Freedom Ring
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#829237891
No — President Obama's policy will hurt to an already struggling workforce
ROY BECK, Founder and President of NumbersUSA
