President Obama is about to embark on a mission that will be unprecedented in U.S. history. As early as next week, he is expected to issue an executive order granting blanket amnesty to a purported five million illegal immigrants in this country. The repercussions politically could be devastating.
The Washington Post reports presidents have indeed carried a big stick on immigration for the past 40 years, but nothing of this magnitude has ever been done. But this will encompass bypassing Congress and literally making new laws. It will be construed by many as an outright violation of his constitutional oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” the Post said.
Back in 2011, the president made it clear he was “prohibited to act” which makes the scenario all the more strange. In an interview that year he said, “This notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. We are doing everything we can administratively. But the fact of the matter is, there are laws on the books that I have to enforce.”
Obviously, since that statement, a lot has changed in the Obama White House. The question is why? The president has already taken action to prevent the deportation of 1.7 million illegal aliens under the age of 30 who were brought to this country as children. He has provided them the right to apply for temporary work permits.
With the stroke of a pen, Obama’s presumed executive order will expand his current policy to include the parents of child immigrants. That means giving permission to as many as five million undocumented immigrants to temporarily stay in the country, protecting them from deportation.
Again the question is why? It is assumed the president is doing this to bolster the Democratic Party’s influence with Hispanics creating a new base of voters favorable to them. Yet no president has ever exercised his discretion as broadly as Obama is expected to do, thus creating a situation within Congress that could rescind his order completely leaving Democrats to look like “promising fools” to many Hispanics.
The entire mess could end up in the courts for years blemishing the Democratic Party label to millions. Regardless, it appears that the president is banking on the fact that Congress will do little to stop him, the Post said.
The president may be facing a “bridge too far” with his authority. It could lead to impeachment proceedings, as many Republicans have threatened. GOP Rep. Tom Cole said on ABC’s “This Week,” “I think the president wants a fight. I think he’s actually trying to bait us into doing some of these extreme things that have been suggested. I don’t think that we will.”
A new poll shows most Americans oppose any proposed executive action, with 46 percent saying the president should wait for the new Republican-controlled Congress to act, and 42 percent saying he should take action now. Another 10 percent are unconvinced either way.
President Obama may have come to a gun fight carrying a knife. Not only does he now face Republican majorities in both Houses come January, but a wary Supreme Court up to their eyeballs already in unconstitutional questions about his administration and Obamacare. It may be an historically rocky last two years for the lame duck president.
