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
“Lip service is all you’ll ever get from me” — Elvis Costello
“With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed…There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president,” Mr. Obama told Univision in a town-hall meeting in 2011.
“Oops, I did it again” — Britney Spears
Once again, any means to justify his political ends:
Obama’s policy strategy: Ignore laws
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77486.html
Napolitano keeps referring to what they’re doing as “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion” when the determination of whether to deport is not even a prosecution.
@rafflaw
Joseph Stiglitz on rent-seeking and people that don’t create value just shift money from the lower and middle class to themselves
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/06/18/joseph-stiglitz-america
Wiki on rent-seeking
“Rent-seeking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth, for example, spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created. A famous example of rent-seeking is the limiting of access to lucrative occupations, as by medieval guilds or modern state certifications and licensures. People accused of rent seeking typically argue that they are indeed creating new wealth (or preventing the reduction of old wealth) by improving quality controls, guaranteeing that charlatans do not prey on a gullible public, and preventing bubbles.
Many current studies of rent-seeking focus on efforts to capture various monopoly privileges stemming from government regulation of free competition. The term itself derives, however, from the far older practice of appropriating a portion of production by gaining ownership or control of land.”
Stiglitz is of course a Nobel prize winning Keynesian but in decrying rent-seekers he agrees with the Libertarian lawyers like Ilya Somin that want to get rid of Bar requirements and the lawyers guild.
MM:
No, MM you provided us a direct quote — not an approximation, summary, or paraphrase — to support your argument and it never was. It’s just exactly what I thought: Your intellectual integrity is about as reliable as your commentary. There never was any such quote and you know it. No mention anywhere of “pushing until a greater power stops us.” And when caught in the prevarication, your retort is some tired old imperialistic rhetoric everyone on this blog can quote from the unnamed Bush official that only roughly approximates your point and, upon closer reflection has little to do with Obama “pushing” anyone.
Sorry MM, but like most here I don’t suffer fools gladly especially ones who have to fabricate a quote to get their point across. Keep reading those books and magazines there MM, maybe even try a newspaper or two. You’ll probably read about Jayson Blair. He couldn’t keep his quotes straight either or even where he was when he quoted them.
Followup on the 6 year old girl whose arrest offended SwarthmoreMom
http://www.azcentral.com/community/northvalley/articles/20120618sheriffs-deputies-turn-over-year-old-adults-ice-abrk.html
A 6-year-old child taken into custody by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office as part of a human-smuggling investigation is under the care of a faith-based social-services organization, the El Salvador Consulate said.
The child, whose name has not been released, was picked up on Friday by deputies along with 16 others suspected of being in the country illegally. The child was unaccompanied and others in the group claimed to know nothing about her, sheriff’s officials said.
Officials initially believed the girl was from El Salvador, based on her statements to deputies. Sheriff’s officials transferred custody of the girl to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
José Joaquin Chacon,El Salvador’s consulate general in Phoenix, said an investigation found the child was not from El Salvador, but Mexico.
Chacon said consulate officials inquiring into the child’s origin found she was in the care of a faith-based social-services group. Officials from the organization said that without a name, she was not able to confirm the girl was in her group’s care.
Socorro Cordova, a spokeswoman for the consul general of Mexico, was not able to confirm the girl’s current location.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, released a statement saying only that the child was handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, would not comment on the case.
Cordova said that sometimes official are not able to locate the family of youths taken into custody. In those cases, the child is put up for adoption after about six months.
ICE officials say that so far in fiscal 2012, they have transferred 1,636 unaccompanied and undocumented minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. That number was 1,736 in fiscal 2011.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said deputies do see cases like this from time to time.
“I think out of all of them, I think this is the most disturbing, one, because of the circumstances that (there was) no idea where she was going,” he said. “Nobody will take ownership of her. I always think, ‘Could she have been kidnapped?’ I don’t know what the motive was to bring her into the United States.”
He said that in a typical case, the child is on his or her way to parents who sent for her. This seemed to be a different matter as no one claimed to know where the child was headed, Arpaio said.
Anyway that Joe Arpaio is a real racist and sexist for trying to stop human trafficking and arresting these 6 year olds and unaccompanied minors.
“Being on the opposite side of Joe Arpaios just has to be right.”
And I have seen many more lawyers agree with me.
“Anon,
You are wrong and way off base.”
Wouldn’t be the first time, but I have seen other lawyers agree with me.
What OS and Swarthmore “Dad” said!
OS, That’s what my husband says.
Guys, IMHO, at the core of this next election there is only one thing that will matter. It will not be about drone strikes, outhouses, gun control, lack of gun control, or even the stock market. It will be about the SCOTUS. We have some Justices hanging on by a thread, and the next appointments will shape the direction the Court takes for another generation. Do we really want any more appointments in the mold of Alito or Thomas?
When I go to my polling place in November, I will be voting to keep more right wing reactionaries off the Court.
Professor Turley— Your comments are on point! Irrespective of whether Obama is frustrated with Congress, he does not have executive authority to circumvent Congress (federal law) by granting special treatment and rewards in the way of work permits to ILLEGAL immigrants and permission to a class of people not to have federal law applied against them!
Americans overwhelmingly (including this life-long Democrat) are DEMANDING THE ENFORCEMENT OF OUR MOST-GENEROUS-LAWS-IN-THE-WORLD IMMIGRATION LAWS. We permit 1 million LEGAL immigrants into our country every year— it is WRONG to grant rewards for lawbreaking when so many LEGAL immigrants have paid a high price, waited the wait, and gone though a backgound check to come here LEGALLY!
AN ADMINISTRATION WHICH PLEDGES THE SUBVERSION OF FEDERAL LAW IS INTOLERABLE!
The GOP are corporatist, criminal fascists and minions of special interests not interested in doing the job as described by the Constitution but rather in lining their own pockets and stroking their maladjusted overinflated egos.
The DNC are spineless, corporatist fascists and minions of special interests not interested in doing the job as described by the Constitution but rather in lining their own pockets and stroking their maladjusted overinflated egos.
The Libertarians are clueless, corporatist fascists and minions of special interests not interested in doing the job as described by the Constitution but rather in lining their own pockets and stroking their maladjusted overinflated egos.
Most Americans are tired of all of their self-serving bullshit from all of the major political parties that comes at the expense of tax dollars better spent elsewhere and ever eroding civil liberties in the name of a war against a noun that is less likely to kill you than your own furniture and increasingly is turning this country into a military police state.
Now everyone got equal time in a non-partisan manner.
Happy?
Anon,
You are wrong and way off base.
Logan5,
I just love how you conservative hypocrites now put down George Bush after voting for him twice. It is your way of distancing yourself from his failures, only to try to replicate his policies with yet another figurehead fot war and greed.
Frustrated Ron Paul supporters………………..
“By the way, I o not overbill and I am not a retiree.”
Well, I’d say it probably depends on what form of law you practice. But since most/many lawyers do not participate in a free market where any participant is free to walk away, it’s almost certain that you are not billing free market rates even if you are not double-billing.
It’s part of the fundamental logical fallacies that most lawyers cling to, the notion that because they command high prices, that must mean they provide value to their clients. The notion that because they are paid as much as doctors they provide value to society.
In reality since many lawyers set prices based what the other lawyers are charging and knowing that their clients are over a barrel and unable to walk away, there is no basis to any of these beliefs.
You may think I am wrong about this (and maybe I am), but you might also consider:
Upton Sinclair: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
What a telling contrast between the deeply principled, reasoned (and likely prophetic) comments offered by Jill and JT with the blind partisanship and pack mentality of the guest bloggers that flood post after post on this blog.
definition of proverbial kissing up — anon
That should be “stance” not Stacey!
Anon,
Obama’s Stacey on young immigrants is a principled stand against the radical right that has done nothing about illegal immigration. By the way, I o not overbill and I am not a retiree.
“President Obama today changed the future for hundreds of thousands of Texans who were caught in legal limbo. Our President announced that he would grant administrative relief to undocumented students who have grown up in our communities, stayed out of trouble, and studied in our schools. This administrative relief, known as deferred action, does not grant these young people citizenship or permanent residency. It simply means that young immigrants who were brought to this country at a very young age will be able to come out of the shadows and work legally in our country or join the U.S. armed forces.
The provisions in the President’s announcement are similar to those in the federal DREAM Act, which Texas Democrats overwhelmingly supported as a ballot referendum.
These changes are particularly important in Texas. For ten years, undocumented students who meet specific requirements have been able to pursue a higher education in Texas. Thanks to our President, these students will be able to practice their professions and contribute to our economy.
Every day it is clear that Democrats continue to push forward while Republicans attempt to impede change. The President has kept the hope alive for children who have been raised as Americans and contribute to this country.
The President’s position lies in stark contrast to that of Mitt Romney who has the most extreme position of any presidential candidate in history. It’s also in sharp contrast to the “Bracero” type guest worker program that the Texas Republican Party is touting as a signature piece in their platform. Republicans are willing to turn their back on young people who are faced with the prospect of deportation and an inability to find gainful employment unless such young people are part of a “Bracero” guest worker program.
Although today’s announcement is a huge step forward, Congress needs to follow President Obama’s lead and pass the DREAM Act to enact a more permanent solution. Republican opposition to the DREAM Act will be remembered as another example of their embarrassing record of consistently being on the wrong side of history.”
Gilberto Hinojosa Signature
Gilberto Hinojosa
Chair of the Texas Democratic Party