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This would be incredibly stupid. It would be immensely unpopular, and it would also be very ineffective as a matter of policy. Stupid enough to think that Obama wouldn't really do it.

The pardon power is broad, but it only extends to past acts: one cannot use it to immunize future illegality (such as taking or giving employment in the absence of a qualified immigration status). It also only extends to crimes: all the pardons in the world doesn't get one a Green Card or H1B if one isn't otherwise entitled to one under law, or qualify one for welfare assistance limited to citizens, etc.

The pardon would terminate the deportation proceedings of anyone who is now presently in them, but that can't be more than 1% of the total illegal aliens, and that would be even more unpopular too, given that a fairly higher percentage of deportation processes are triggered by coming to the attention of the ICE for other reasons -- often the commission of non-immigration crimes.

Bottom line is the only way to make it stick as a policy equivalent in some respects to a statutory amnesty would be to have a policy of rolling pardons -- at 8 a.m. every day he pardons all the prior days' immigration violations and eligibility to work violations, which would allow physical presence and employment, but not other attributes of legal presence. This would be a truly immense overreach.

(And, of course, the middle class would feel the pain, because the simple fact is the country already has a surplus of low-skill labor from south of the border ... whereas the new policy would get millions of high skill workers from south of the border and across every ocean here competing vigorously for every professional and managerial job that couldn't previously have been off-shored.)

The boy king will lose great support from everyone but his extreme leftist base who is also interested in destroying the United States as we know it.

Everyone else will be ready to recall him and replace him. maybe even many in congress.

It would be too far a reach for him. But if he wants to then do it. It only makes his demise that much swifter and more assured.