The Supreme Court leaves undocumented immigrants in the shadows

Washington Post ^ | 6/23/2016 | Editorial Board

[simpson96]

ON ONE level, it’s unsurprising that the Supreme Court deadlocked 4 to 4, after an appeals court split 2 to 1, in considering President Obama’s sweeping executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. As a legal matter, this was not an easy call.

What makes the outcome so depressing for the country, and such a standard-bearer for failed governance, is that as a policy matter, it shouldn’t be hard at all. Immigrants have been and continue to be, on balance, an overwhelmingly positive force for the nation’s social and economic health. It would be in their interest and the nation’s to regularize the status of workers and families who, as a practical matter, are not going away. There was a time when politicians of both parties understood this and actually came close to legislating a solution. But loss of nerve and an impulse to torpedo compromise in search of maximal political advantage put a solution out of reach, and here we are: Millions of people remain condemned to live in the shadows, and the U.S. economy cannot take advantage of the talents and energies of all the nation’s inhabitants.

surge in immigration from Mexico around the turn of the century was the precipitating event. As Mexico’s economy improved, the surge slowed and even reversed, but 11 million or so undocumented immigrants (by no means all Mexican, of course) remain. A Senate compromise, supported for a time by Republicans such as John McCain (Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), as well as by most Democrats, would have allowed these undocumented people to stay if they learned English, paid taxes and followed the law. Stricter border security and penalties against employers of illegal immigrants would have discouraged future surges. A win all around.

House Republicans, though, refused to consider the compromise.

[dznutz]

But will it keep them out of the voting booth?

[Shanghai Dan]

No, WaPo editors, it IS an easy call.

There are existing laws. They say illegal aliens (not “undocumented workers”) are to be deported. That’s the law. The President is bound by oath and the Constitution to uphold the laws of the US.

The ONLY thing that should have been under consideration at the USSC was the legality of those immigration laws. If they are legal (not violating the Constitution), then there is zero question. If they were not legal, then there is zero question.

There is ONLY a question, it is ONLY a difficult decision, if you try to figure out a way to break the law whilst not breaking the law. If you try to use the USSC to create new laws and power rather than do what they are Constitutionally restricted to doing: evaluating other court cases and laws based strictly upon their adherence to the US Constitution.

It’s really quite simple...

[pas]

Plenty of sun shining south of the border.

[simpson96]

"But will it keep them out of the voting booth?"

GREAT point.

[American in Israel]

Plenty of people to mow lawns and clean pools, jut not at below minimum wage under the table without obamacare.

The goal is to get rich while impoverishing Americans.