Posted on 06/17/2012 12:04:31 PM PDT by lbryce
Republicans upset over President Obama’s decision to ignore the illegal immigration of hundreds of thousands of young foreigners should be overjoyed by the precedent the President sets. Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor asserts that by ignoring Congress, Obama is “reshaping the power of the presidency.” Actually, he is just re-asserting a power the presidency had long exercised until relatively recent history. While I happen to believe that the United States would be better off with greatly expanded legal immigration opportunities, even those conservatives of a more xenophobic persuasion should find plenty to like about Obama’s Friday announcement.
The decision to cease enforcing particular provisions of immigration law was not, as some commentors have asserted, a presidential usurpation of legislative power. The Executive branch is not making law, as was the case when it attempted to declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant in violation of the powers granted to the EPA by Congress. Instead, this is a case where the President disagrees with a law on the books, and thus unilaterally decides not to carry it out.
We have a long history of a passive aggressive presidency. Thomas Jefferson refused to spend $50,000 to buy gunboats to patrol the Mississippi River and America’s border with the French colony on its western bank when his purchase of Louisiana in 1803 made moot that border. I’m sure there was some Congressman in whose district those boats were to be made who objected to this first use of presidential impoundment power. Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge were both famously cool toward the idea of enforcing the Volstead Act outlawing alcohol. Grover Cleveland didn’t fill numerous appointments, believing that government payrolls had grown bloated through patronage and spoils.
(Excerpt) Read more at bobkrumm.com ...
This is a lot different from the President deciding how to enforce a law that Congress has passed. This is the President making his own laws that contradict the existing ones, because he couldn’t get the changes he wants passed through Congress.
he House may not want to grant what it sees as the Rat advantage of a Senate telling it where to shove its impeachment. But still. I’d say give this hot potato to the Democrats and let the public watch them do their partisan thing. Rats may not feel ashamed but the public will still see it as shameful.
he House => The House
I think that most conservatives believe that the federal government should function in strict adherence to the US Constitution.
Regardless of what the president thinks about the immigration laws, it is not up to him to decide which laws his administration will enforce and which to ignore. When he took the oath of office, he swore to faithfully execute all of the laws passed by the US Congress. To willfully ignore to enforce any law breaks that oath. Only the US Congress can change the law. He must work with Congress if he wants changes. Declaring to not deport certain illegal immigrants and issuing them work permits is probably unconstitutional.
Advocating that presidents should break their oath of office and refuse to enforce any law that they don’t like would just invite chaos and anarchy. Endless impeachment proceedings, petitions to the SCOTUS to intervene. That’s no way for a great country to run a government.
I believe the founding fathers got it right. Let the laws be written by the people’s representatives in Congress, and then have those laws enforced to the best ability of the president as sworn when taking office.
Right. If the House wasn’t filled with spineless Republican jellyfish.
Obama’s not just refusing to enforce the laws, though, he’s making new law. When he was refusing to deport, he was refusing to enforce laws. Now that he is extending blanket amnesty to a whole set of lawbreakers, and providing them with a “path to citizenship” not contained in the statutes, he’s gone too far.
How so? It sets a precedent for a president not to jail abortionists if that's the law, but would it really work the other way?
I guess the writer here is arguing that this decision is like the impoundment of appropriated funds, but after Watergate, Congress voted to severely restrict presidential power in that area.
The Constitution is crystal clear that Congress has the exclusive grant of power to establish immigration and naturalization standards.
Article 1, Section 8:
“The Congress shall have Power...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization...”
Good post. We should email Congress, Rush,Drudge etc. to show them that.
True only for laws that are constitutional. If the president believes that some law the Congress has passed is unconstitutional, then, in order to keep his own sacred, binding oath to support the Constitution, he has an obligation to provide the appropriate check and balance on the other branch.
In this case, there is no shadow of any doubt whatsoever that Congress, in Article 1, Section 8, possesses the sole grant of constitutional power to govern immigration and naturalization.
This is the President making his own laws that contradict the existing ones
What you say is true. So Obama has to be impeached.
Could this be about VOTES for Democrats, especially Obama? They’ve had to cobble together a “base” in a desperate attempt to stay in power, and in so doing, they’ve gone out of their way to shower contempt on Conservatives and even on those vaunted “undecideds” out there that the media likes to trumpet around election time.
I’m praying that the Lord will allow this “Hussein” nightmare to gradually fade into just a distant, vague memory.
Obama can cherry-pick the laws he wants to enforce. Ergo, we can choose to ignore the precedent set by Roe v Wade. With that ruling out of the way, we would revert to previous more restrictive abortion laws. It should work both ways.
That’s true, but at the time a president is sworn into office, most existing law is established. Of course, any new laws that come to him to sign can be vetoed for any reason, including the belief that it is unconstitutional.
Okay, but then it would be the states who were jailing the abortionists, not the federal government.
Works for me. A two-fer...reinstatement of appropriate states’ rights and use of executive privilege by our side by enforcing the “Obama precedent.”
And when the democrats return to he white house?
I guess a President aromney could force the NY Times to reveal its sources or close it’s doors.
This has been going on for twenty years if not more. Washington and some of the state governments are playing games with the borders. They pretend to patrol the borders but leave plenty of loopholes so that the future Democrats and cheap peon labor can continue to flood our country. One of the tricks that they use is to not jail Mexicans caught crossing the border. Instead they let them walk back, well as soon as the Border Patrol leave, the Mexicans are marching back north again.
Illegal immigration is about cheap votes, cheap labor and lots of “helpers” who make money off the illegals.
Have you read this vdare.com article on birthright citizenship? It seems that some GOP establishment types may be sending out a trail balloon on stopping birthright citizenship for illegals. There is speculation that the GOP may be willing to split with the Democrat open borders types in exchange for a guest worker program. This is a very interesting proposition.
At that point, they will never leave it again. Instead, they will invoke the "Obama Precedent" (excellent catchphrase for Obama's defiant obstruction of US Law).
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