executive power to order immigration reform
Where exactly in the Constitution is this found??
The little arrogant bastard needs to be broken, all eyes are on you GOP. Stop the talk and lets see action
I think that a president’s power to pardon illegal immigrants is based on politically correct interpretations of the Constitution’s Clause 1 of Section 2 of Article II. Here’s the key wording from that clause.
”… and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States [emphasis added], …"
Noting that delegates to the Constitutional Convention used the term “United States” in that document many times as a reference to the federal government, not the state governments, please consider the following.
The president’s power to pardon offense against the United States is not independent of Congress as many people seem to think imo. This is because Congress must first legislatively define what an illegal immigrant is before a president can pardon those who violate Congress’s definitions of it. But regardless that Congress has made such laws, there is a MAJOR constitutional problem with all federal immigration laws imo.
Politically correct interpretations of the Constituton’s Uniform Rule of Naturalization Clause aside, such interpretations wrongly used to justify federal immigration laws, please consider the following. Thomas Jefferson had noted, in terms of the now wrongly ignored 10th Amendment nonetheless, that the Founding States never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate immigration.
“4. _Resolved_, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are: that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens. And it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” the act of the Congress of the United States, passed on the — day of July, 1798, intituled “An Act concerning aliens,” which assumes powers over alien friends, not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force [emphasis added].” —Thomas Jefferson, Draft of the Kentucky Resolutions - October 1798.
The consequence of the states never granting the feds the specific power to regulate immigration is the following. Obama actually has no broken federal immigration laws to pardon since such laws are constitutionally indefensible. In fact, in order to pursue his misguided immigration agenda, lawless Obama must wrongly usurp 10th Amendment-protected state powers to both define illegal immigration, and then pardon people who violate such laws.
H O W E V E R …
The problem with stopping Obama on state power issues is that, regardless that RINOs did well in the Senate in the last election, I don’t think that anybody in DC is ready to admit that the 10th Amendment exists.