The Obama Administration again waited for a Friday afternoon to announce a major new policy change — repeating its practice of timing important announcements to reduce media and public attention. The latest change is obviously controversial. The Administration will no longer deport illegal aliens under 30 who came to this country as children — effectively negating part of the federal law. It raises some troubling questions, again, about President Obama assertion of executive power. While liberals again celebrate the unilateral action, they ignore that danger that the next president may also simply chose to ignore whole areas of the federal law and criminal code in areas ranging from the environment to employment discrimination. It is one more brick in the wall of the Imperial Presidency constructed under Barack Obama — a wall that may prove difficult to dismantle for citizens in the future.
Presidents are given extreme deference in decisions on the enforcement of federal laws. It would be difficult for anyone to challenge this policy for that reason. However, that does not mean that this is a good practice — regardless of the merits of specific policy. It is also hard to ignore the obvious political play for Hispanic votes in key swing states. Obama waited for years to take this action and did so with polls showing that Hispanics will likely select the next president. Even some of the more liberal columnists and reporters are acknowledging that this change appears driven by politics.
Obama officials do not deny that they are circumventing Congress. In a recent interview, senior Obama adviser David Plouff told CNN “if congress would act, we would be happy to sign the DREAM Act tomorrow.” Since it has not done so, the White House is going to accomplish the same objection unilaterally.
This is different from past presidents who have not made deportation a priority in their policies. Despite the criticism of Obama, he is certainly no less aggressive on deportation than his predecessors. Indeed, he may be more aggressive in terms of numbers. Presidents like George W. Bush clearly did not push for deportation based solely on illegal status. The Administration, however, was forced to admit this long-suspected policy in court in fighting the Arizona law — stating that it did conflict with federal policy because the Administration did not want mass deportations.
This is different. Here the Administration is implementing a categorical policy not to enforce federal law, which dictates deportation for illegal immigrations regardless of their age. Congress has refused to pass such laws and this is an obvious effort to circumvent Congress — something of a signature for this Administration. Liberals were outraged by Bush’s use of signing statements as a circumvention of Congress. Yet, when Obama broke his promise and started using signing statements, liberals were again silent. Now, he has gone further and (rather than advancing a restrictive interpretation) he has announced that he will simply not enforce the law.
The change could also create a new conflict with states passing tough immigration laws. We are awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Arizona case where the Administration may lose some ground. The announcement on Friday could be an effort to preempt the decision. If the Administration had already decided to stop deportations, it would look bad to come after the decision and appear to be circumventing both the judicial and legislative branches.
This is part of a pattern for the Administration. For example, the Administration has announced that it will ignore two federal statutes that bar betting across state lines. That effectively legalized Internet gambling. While his Administration claims that it has no choice but to enforce other laws like marijuana enforcement and for years, both DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell laws, it has not hesitated to declare other laws as unenforceable as a matter of policy. Ultimately, it took the same approach to DOMA — after years of defending it. DOMA is striking in that the Administration still refuses to accept that sexual orientation should be treated like race or gender as a category of discrimination. If it did, the refusal to defend DOMA would have been more clearly based on a view that it is unconstitutional. Instead, the Administration made general claims of states rights (that do not apply to areas like medical marijuana it seems) and even more vague references to privacy and equal protection.
What is left is a conflicted approach to enforcement based on the president’s changing views — in the latest case a change that seems motivated in large part by political advantage.
Liberals and civil libertarians were united on such questions in denouncing the circumvention of Congress by Bush. However, once again, there appears to be a blindness to the dangers of this practice when it comes to Obama. What will happen if a President Romney simply declares that he is not going to enforce environmental law or conflict laws or other parts of the federal code? Is the difference going to be simply that he is not Obama? Liberals are losing not just their credibility but principles in these controversies. Our system is based on a careful balancing of power that forces disparate factional groups to reach agreements in the legislative process. That is what brings the stability to our system.
This latest controversy is not about young illegal immigrants. There are strong policy arguments in favor of this change. However, those arguments need to be made in Congress. This should also not be an “after-the-fact” debate following a change late on a Friday where the president simply grants the equivalent of amnesty for hundreds of thousands of people. Polls show a sharply divided population with a majority favoring tougher immigration laws. We have a political system designed to address such divisive issues. It does not always work the way presidents demand. Indeed, the Democrats previously used filibusters and other techniques to block the Bush Administration and how the Republicans are doing the same thing. However, that is the point. Presidents should not be able to simply make federal laws discretionary to their whim or will. This may be a worthy end but it is the wrong means in a system based on shared powers of government.
Source: Politico
anon, It is not surprising that posters that came to this blog years ago because of Prof. Turley’s stand against torture would also be pro-immigrant and against deportations. Think about it…… the professor chose some of the people that you are critical of to be his guest bloggers.
For you, Mespo, to save you time searching for what you couldn’t read even if you found it. From Ron Suskind’s now-canonical expose of the Bush/Cheney (or vice versa) administration, published in The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004.:
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You can find any number of statements by Bush/Cheney officials to the same power-drunk effect, and I’ve now provided you with two. Keep searching, though, as you will surely find all you can stomach if you only keep at it long enough.
Personally, I read books and magazines, as well as the Internet, and not everything I’ve read always shows up in both venues. Try to branch out a little.
Imperial Presidency. What RepubliCon clap trap. Willard you have a pal.
Sadly, I find the “whose ox is being gored” heuristic of political choices an accurate predictor of decisions made by left and right and terribly prevalent here. It is especially odd that the regular inhabitants of this blog, mostly haplessly overbilling lawyers and retirees would defend this behavior and proudly fly its flag at the blog of a lawyer known for his many principled defenses of civil liberties.
What’s amazing is how this heuristic is most enthusiastically demonstrated by blatherers that would have you believe they would be the most opposed.
Oh well the 32oz happy hour beer only carries so far.
Upton Sinclair: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
Speaking of Presidents pushing the outside of the power envelope, consider a modest proposal by Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration and former editor of the Wall Street Journal (so this guy’s got all the “conservative” cred he could ever want or need):
Mespo can find this and other “leftist” rantings at Counterpunch.
Now if Dubya Obama really wants to do his autocratic fuehrerprinzip thing for the people and not the Wall Street Gangsters, he knows what to do.
Michael Murry:
I remember reading a few years back where an official of the Bush II administration frankly proclaimed:“We’re just going to keep on pushing until some greater power stops us.”
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Try as I might with my memory, a Google search, a BIng Search, and with just about every other search engine, I can’t locate this quote. Is this, MM, like most of your other factual predicates and just another rabbit out of your … er … hat designed to start a conversation about how much you detest the current administration or do you get kicks out of just making things up out of whole cloth — or should I say “hole cloth”? Maybe it’s part of the Af-Pak conglomerate of ideas? LOL
MIke S commenting on Jill:
“Compared to what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced in life, most people including you have no clue. Your empathy is only extended to those far away from you and ignores those living next door.”
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Ain’t that the truth!
I remember reading a few years back where an official of the Bush II administration frankly proclaimed: “We’re just going to keep on pushing until some greater power stops us.” President Obama has clearly chosen to do a little pushing of his own. One may assume that he did this in his own political interest and/or in the interest of some worthy cause, but in any event, the “larger power” of the Congress and Courts — to say nothing of the Press and the People — may push back and stop him if they should feel the inclination.
I await news of the coming of this “other power.”
Bettykath, a judge in Southern Maryland sentenced about 100 young Black men per year to six months each (just under the amount of time that it takes to either appeal or bring some kind of habeas petition) but before sentencing them, he’d ask, “Do you know how to pick tobacco?” Yep. They served the sentence at the county jail, were picked up by trucks at 5 a.m. each day, shipped out to the judge’s tobacco farm, and were brought back to the jail at 7 p.m. for taxpayer-paid supper, then to bed in their taxpayer-paid cots. And this was in the late 1980s already. We’re well on our way.
How long have we been working on a comprehensive immigration plan? Forever and never. Is this issue going to be like abortion, one that is never ‘solved’ but is used to get out the vote and appeal to the worst in more ignorant populations?
…. We need these workers, with the current Mexican birth rate falling below replacement, in the future we will be begging and paying a premium to these workers to please, please, pretty please come pick our apples & tomatoes.
As to the Dream Act kids, finally have some protection. But damn if there is ever going to be a equitable solution to immigration until they stop using it for political purposes.
Indigo Jones 1, June 18, 2012 at 6:34 pm
“To forgo a repeat of last year, when labor shortages triggered an estimated $140 million in agricultural losses, as crops rotted in the fields, officials in Georgia are now dispatching prisoners to the state’s farms to help harvest fruit and vegetables.”
Georgia has been using inmates for a couple of decades at least to enhance the bottom line of various corporations. They found a way to bring slavery back.
Mike S.,
I do love it when you get fed up with the stupidity and just call ’em out. It’s so Big Apple (originally a term jazz musicians used in the 20’s when referring to NYC)
Anyway, it’s fun to read.
@idealist
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110908/02534215846/wasnt-patriot-act-supposed-to-be-about-stopping-terrorism.shtml
In all honesty, the success of since industrial-scale commerce got its hands on it makes CALEA look downright premeditated (this was back int he days of the clipper chip debate, and when Phil Zimmerman had to send PGP overseas in a printed volume because encryption software was considered a munition).
At the same time, innocuous sounding legislation like the Stored Communications Act of 1986 provide for law enforcement to access data left on a server without a warrant after 180 days.
Add to that national security letters, which don’t have to go before a judge, and voluntary disclosures (when Verizon handed over customer data to the NSA, it was justified as “protected free speech”) and you begin to see how the PATRIOT ACT fits in with a larger campaign…
“Nixon would also have been seen as too liberal by this crop of Republicans.”
Which if that doesn’t scare the crap out of you about the current degraded state of the GOP, I don’t know what will.
Mike S. & Swarthmore mom,
Nixon would also have been seen as too liberal by this crop of Republicans.
I thought, as did many on the right, that the Patriot Act was a euphemistically-named, dangerous piece of legislation.—Logan5
Whenever I see someone saying the above, I reply:
Did you read all the 357 previous acts of Congress which would be modified and make your decision based on that?
Congress itself had only a few hours to read and decide.
Did anybody dare? No, they were all busy dicking and ducking for George after 9/11 to do anything but pull out another roll and keep on wiping off the excess.
As people we’ve always known who bought us, at the cheapest rate possible. Only some were stupid enough to think that if they said “yassuh, boss” then they might get more work. A sketch admittedly, but true in spirit of why folks vote Republican.
“To forgo a repeat of last year, when labor shortages triggered an estimated $140 million in agricultural losses, as crops rotted in the fields, officials in Georgia are now dispatching prisoners to the state’s farms to help harvest fruit and vegetables.”
“The labor shortages, which also have affected the hotel and restaurant industries, are a consequence of Georgia’s immigration enforcement law, HB 87, which was passed last year. As State Rep. Matt Ramsey, one of the bill’s authors, said at the time, “Our goal is … to eliminate incentives for illegal aliens to cross into our state.”
“Since 1950 the U.S. labor force has roughly doubled in size, but there has been no long-run increase in unemployment. Most economic studies also find little evidence that increased immigration depresses the wages of U.S. workers. At worst, it might push down the wages of high school dropouts, but even there the effect is small.”
“Simple supply and demand analysis would seem to indicate if you increase the supply of labor, wages will decline. But immigrants don’t simply increase the supply of labor. They supply skills that most Americans don’t have. As such, they don’t replace American workers so much as free them up to do other, typically more-skilled, things. This symbiotic relationship benefits immigrants and native-born alike.”
source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/
Somehow I don’t think this controversy is motivated by economic factors…