Posted on 11/06/2014 12:30:12 PM PST by DanMiller
What Obama intends to do by His royal decree on amnesty for illegal aliens is murky at best. Here, however, are a few thoughts.
During His November 5th press conference, Obama declined to provide significant details about His contemplated Royal decree on immigration "reform."
Jeff, you know, I think if you want to get into the details of it, I suspect that when I announce that executive action, it’ll be bright full of detail."
That's similar to former House Speaker Pelosi's "we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it....” However, before the ObamaCare legislation passed we had an idea what it said. Then we had to wait for several years for the multiple Federal agencies charged with implementing it to tell us what it meant to them and then for the courts to decide whether they were correct.
Obama continued:
On immigration, I know that concerns have been expressed that, well, if you do something through executive actions, even if it’s within your own authorities, that that will make it harder to pass immigration reform. I just have to remind everybody, I’ve heard that argument now for a couple of years. This is an issue I actually wanted to get done in my first term. And we didn’t see legislative action. [Emphasis added.]
Not even with solid Democrat majorities in both houses?
And in my second term, I made it my top legislative priority. We got really good work done by a bipartisan group of senators, but it froze up in the House. And, you know, I think that the best way, if folks are serious about getting immigration reform done, is going ahead and passing a bill and getting it to my desk. [Emphasis added.]And then the executive actions that I take go away. They’re superseded by the law that is passed. And I will engage any member of Congress who’s interested in this in how we can shape legislation that will be a significant improvement over the existing system. But what we can’t do is just keep on waiting. There is a cost to waiting. There’s a cost to our economy. It means that resources are misallocated. [Emphasis added.]
Any chance that a "comprehensive" immigration bill that might pass both houses of the current Congress would pass the next congress, to convene in January, seems remote. That's probably the basis of Obama's sense of urgency in getting it done now. If legislation did pass and Obama did not like enough of it, He would veto it. And that brings us to this: "And then the executive actions that I take go away. They’re superseded by the law that is passed." However, no legislation that Obama vetoes would make His executive actions "go away."
Were Obama to sign legislation, parts of which He does not like but which He thinks are the best He can get or which He plans to ignore, executive amnesty already granted to several million illegal aliens would not "go away," poof. The Obama InJustice Department would very likely go to Federal court, seek and get restraining orders on any attempt to make Executive amnesty "go away" via parts of the law that He does not like and therefore refuses to enforce. As I wrote at PJ Media in April of 2011, we learned in the 9th Circuit decision in United States v. State of Arizona that enforcement of Federal immigration laws is the exclusive prerogative of the Federal Government-- even when it chooses not to enforce them. As Judge Bea said in his dissent,
The majority also finds that state officers reporting illegal aliens to federal officers, Arizona would interfere with ICE’s [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] “priorities and strategies.” Maj. Op. at 4824. It is only by speaking in such important-sounding abstractions — “priorities and strategies” — that such an argument can be made palatable to the unquestioning. How can simply informing federal authorities of the presence of an illegal alien, which represents the full extent of Section 2(B)’s limited scope of state-federal interaction, possibly interfere with federal priorities and strategies — unless such priorities and strategies are to avoid learning of the presence of illegal aliens? What would we say to a fire station which told its community not to report fires because such information would interfere with the fire station’s “priorities and strategies” for detecting and extinguishing fires?. . .
The majority’s arguments regarding how any of the state officers’ actions spelled out in Section 2(B) could interfere with federal immigration enforcement is consistent with only one premise: the complaining federal authorities do not want to enforce the immigration laws regarding the presence of illegal aliens, and do not want any help from the state of Arizona that would pressure federal officers to have to enforce those immigration laws. With respect, regardless what may be the intent of the Executive, I cannot accept this premise as accurately expressing the intent of Congress. (emphasis in original)
Here's the SCOTUSblog "Plain English summary" of the subsequent Supreme Court decision:
Arizona had taken the lead, in 2010, in a renewed effort by states to adopt policies that would control many of the aspects of the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who had entered the U.S. without legal permission to do so. The law has been challenged by various civil rights groups as a form of racial bias, but that was not an issue before the Supreme Court. The law also had been challenged by the federal government as unconstitutional, on the theory that Arizona was trying to move in on the federal government’s superior power to enforce federal immigration laws. That is the challenge that the Court decided Thursday. In the end, by a vote of 5-3, the Court nullified three of the four provisions because they either operated in areas solely controlled by federal policy, or they interfered with federal enforcement efforts. Nullified were sections making it a crime to be in Arizona without legal papers, making it a crime to apply for or get a job in the state, or allowing police to arrest individuals who had committed crimes that could lead to their deportation. The Court left intact — but subject to later challenges in lower courts — a provision requiring police to arrest and hold anyone they believe has committed a crime and whom they think is in the country illegally, and holding them until their immigration status could be checked with federal officials.
The Arizona case involved Federal Statutes. Since the Executive Branch and its multiple Federal agencies -- not the Congress -- are in charge of immigration law enforcement, it seems likely that the Supreme Court, after years of litigation, would hold that enforcement and non-enforcement of legislation passed by the Congress and signed by the President are up to the Executive branch -- even when the Executive branch refuses to enforce parts of the legislation because Obama does not like them. That's what happened with the Arizona statute.
Perhaps the current Congress will sing Kumbaya and pass "comprehensive" immigration reform that Obama will like.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jRAbOPM7-Q]
Were the next Congress to pass legislation to kill His Royal decree, Obama would veto it and His Royal decree would remain in effect. Perhaps then the only viable means of attack would be for the Congress to refuse to fund pertinent Federal projects.
Unfortunately, it now appears that an omnibus funding bill will pass during the current Congress unless there is sufficient opposition from conservatives and perhaps others, particularly if Obama's Executive decree on immigration is issued before the funding vote.
It doesn’t matter whether Congress CAN block executive amnesty, because they AGREE with amnesty:
House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, and Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, among others, are developing the “principles” in a process coordinated by Boehner’s new top immigration adviser, Becky Tallent. Tallent worked for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a member of the Senate Gang of Eight, for years, having helped write the failed immigration bill McCain pushed with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) in the final years of the Bush administration.
The “principles,” the Wall Street Journal wrote, will grant legalization – amnesty – to illegal aliens and would give corporate CEOs exactly what they want: more cheap labor in the form of more tech visas, more importing of low-skilled labor, and other measures that would harm the over 100 million American workers out of the workforce right now.
Defund everything.
Lets quickly concoct excuses, set up the ground work, and portray everyone in D.C. as helpless bystanders. Hopefully none will notice all the winks and nods when amnesty is made law...
1) tell Obama EVERY appointment he tries to make will be DOA ...
I am all for comprehensive immigration reform.
1.) Stop all visas
2.) Cancel all green cards
3.) Ship ‘em all back.
4.) Build the d*** fence.
5.) Photo ID to vote.
6.) Stop the nonsense that born on US soil is auto citizen, at least one parent has to be a citizen already.
7.) Any order would be fine.
Probably a few things I didn’t think of also.
Pressure must be placed on Boehner. He might have some vested interest in it since his daughter married a Jamaican (?) construction worker with long dreadlocks and a drug record. I don’t know if the guy is illegal or has relatives and friends who are illegals.
This is one of the reasons I am in favor of an article 5 convention for the sole purpose of repealing the 16th and 17th amendments. This would fix most of our problems as soon as they had NO MONEY.
Good points.
I think that the best way, if folks are serious about getting immigration reform done, is going ahead and passing a bill and getting it to my desk.And then the executive actions that I take go away.
That's like saying, "I'm going to rape you. You can consent and then it's not rape. But one way or the other I'm going to have you." (h/t A. Jones)
THERE IS NOTHING TO REFORM!!! Enforce the damned laws.
THIS!!
1- Then add Special Prosecutors galore (Fast and Furious, Benghazi and IRS)
2- Then add a bill removing the Attorney General out of purview of the President, and subordinate to a Board of Governors from the states.
3- Then, put all Inspector Generals within the federal government directly subordinate to a special House committee. Every single one of them.
4- Then, return the militia back to the states and solve the issue of funding by way of import tariffs, and by savings from defunding welfare and foreign aid.
Clip that mofo permanently!!!!!!!
make a law and override his veto
If the Congress finds that the Executive is not faithfully executing the law, the Constitutional remedy is impeachment, which is a political impossibility at the moment.
They could try to defund but they would need to emphasize that every official processing illegal alien amnesty paperwork is subject to future indictment for malappropriation of funds, abuse of authority, etc.
#2 and #3 are clearly unconstitutional and would struck down by the courts even if passed.
#4 would be vetoed.
We need impeachment, or an Article V convention so the current Fed gov can be abolished and re-constituted by the states, or we need someone or some group to remove Obama by force.
The first is politically impossible, the second unlikely and the third frightful to contemplate.
We're screwed, and Obama knows it.
Key wording in the Constitution’s Clause 1 of Section 2 of Article II reads as follows.
”… and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States [emphasis added], …"
As an axample of a presidential pardon, President George Washingon had ultimately pardoned the farmers involved in the Whiskey Rebellion for breaking a federal law. So the concern is, since the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate immigration, it would seem that the POTUS has no constitutional authority to grant federal amnesty to people who violate 10th Amendment-protected state immigration laws. I would think that only state governments, particularly governors, would have the state authority to pardon people who violate state laws.
What am I overlooking?
Can executive amnesty for illegals be killed by Congress?
Of course they can. Nothing happens in America without money. Congress controls the checkbook.
This is a slow motion coup d'etat: Obama is unperturbed by Dem losses not just because he's an arrogant, narcissistic ass but because he understands that he doesn't need the Congress to govern.
The Fed gov will continue to collect 3 trillion with a 'T' tax dollars, and he will spend them any way he wants.
The Pubs can't shutdown the gov, because of all the mouths suckling at the Federal teat, from grandma on Social Security, to defense contractors, to student loans to welfare queens, just about every family in America gets something from Uncle Sam.
The power of the purse is a quaint notion in such circumstances, not only because Obama is a shameless criminal but because the political pressure to keep the funding going is impossible to resist, and as long as Obama has any cash at all, he will spend it the way he likes.
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