MSNBC loved the speech and Fox news believes it is grounds for impeachment. This is the way it works in modern America. How decisions are arrived at no longer matters; what matters is whether you like the decision. Liberals like the immigration "policy" (whatever it may be - I'm not really sure), while conservatives detest it. Liberals like it because it seems "nice." It's nice to be nice to people, and what could be nicer than saying to a vast array of human beings inside the borders of the United States illegally that they no longer have anything to worry about. While Mr. Obama, in his usual let's-try-to-please-everybody way, made sure we understood that "criminals" will still be deported, what he really meant was that the immigration laws, such as they exist in the United States Code Annotated, will no longer be enforced, because when you enforce them, the natural outcome is deportation. What else could happen? Anyone in the country illegally is by definition a criminal. Adding the fillip that a person who has committed the crime of illegal entry has compounded matters by committing another criminal act while in the United States, as a basis for a "get tough" stance, sounds pretty lame.
The President excused his executive action by saying that Congress had failed to act. Well, you know. Congress doesn't have to act. There are many immigration laws on the books already, such as the omnibus immigration reform act of 1986. That law has not been rigorously enforced; as a result, we are now in the position of having roughly the same number of illegal immigrants in the country that we had when the 1986 law was enacted. Since that law was not enforced, after its amnesty provisions were effected, we're back where we started. So now we have to reform the immigration reform bill, and Congress hasn't done that. So Obama feels that he must do it alone.
So that brings up the first point: why does anything have to be done? As Mr. Obama said in the speech, we're not going to round up 11 million people and send them back where they came from. We're not going to separate illegal adult parents from their American citizen "anchor" babies who were born on U.S. soil. We're not going to do anything about the problem, in fact, because America doesn't do anything about problems. So what is the thinking behind making a "policy" out of continuing to not do the very thing we're not doing?
To give this oddity the patina of legality, Mr. Obama made reference to "prosecutorial discretion." Just to point out the obvious: this doesn't make any sense at all. Deciding not to enforce federal laws which are on the books, in the maroon volumes of the United States Code Annotated, is not what "prosecutorial discretion" is. Prosecutorial discretion applies to discrete cases; yes, the district attorney says, there may be a prima facie violation of the law here. On balance, however, it is not advisable in this particular instance to seek an indictment. The proof necessary may be difficult to obtain. The crime does not seem to have resulted in much personal damage to anyone. Another remedy, such as a fine, might be more appropriate. Bankrupting this defendant by forcing him to defend against this charge seems disproportionate to the gravity of his offense. These are criteria for prosecutorial discretion.
Declaring that a giant cohort of people are immune from the statutes of the United States because it is the President's preferred approach is not "prosecutorial discretion." It is the granting of blanket amnesty. Here's how Paul Krugman, the liberal's Liberal, sums up what he takes to be the universal progressive attitude:
That’s why I enthusiastically support President Obama’s new immigration initiative. It’s a simple matter of human decency.
That’s not to say that I, or most progressives, support open borders. You can see one important reason right there in the Baldizzi apartment: the photo of F.D.R. on the wall. The New Deal made America a vastly better place, yet it probably wouldn’t have been possible without the immigration restrictions that went into effect after World War I. For one thing, absent those restrictions, there would have been many claims, justified or not, about people flocking to America to take advantage of welfare programs.
But of course he does support open borders. If an immigrant can acquire citizenship by crossing the border and settling down, then the border is open. Why is that so hard to see? If this is what Mr. Krugman means by "human decency," then he should support open borders. Rather than make (largely Latino) illegal immigrants go through the difficult transition period (the "shadows," as Mr. Obama called it) of quasi-legality, just use the border crossings to identify people as they come through, give them a Social Security number, and wish them well. Why the charade of adding another 3% to the American population in one fell swoop every couple of decades or so in an amnesty program when the same effect can be accomplished gradually by allowing anyone to walk in on any terms they want? All those future amnesty cases living in an underground economy could have been paying into Social Security all along.
If an American president decides not to enforce immigration laws, as a matter of policy, he is legislating, because his policy amounts to a recission, or amendment abolishing, existing law. As the Chief Executive, his job is to "faithfully execute the laws" of the land. That is is his oath. What Mr. Obama is being applauded for is his decision to rescind existing statutes because Congress will not rescind those existing statutes. Again: how can anybody miss this? But as I said, it isn't the job of Congress to rescind existing statutes because the President would prefer a different situation.
George W. Bush gave this sort of unconstitutional mischief a quantum push when he decided that complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was too much trouble in the post- 9/11 era, so he ordered wiretaps whenever he wanted them. The Congress found out, and one senator, Russ Feingold, brought a censure motion against Bush. He got three other senators to go along with him. Many others agreed that what Bush was doing was illegal, impeachable, a violation of both federal statute and the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, but...it's not a big deal. It's too complicated for Americans to follow. So now we have wholesale, unimpeded, 24/7 spying by the NSA on everybody about everything, all presided over by President Obama, and no one says anything about it anymore for fear they'll wind up living in the Moscow Airport. Wars are now begun on the whim of the executive. A formal declaration of war under Article I of the Constitution is absolutely unthinkable, and the Declaration-Lite of the War Powers Act is also omitted. No need anymore. Congress fulminates, but they don't really do anything except grandstand with "lawsuits" filed against the President based on violations of the "separation of powers," but that's just because they can then say they did something. Something quiet that can disappear quietly after a few months when America is distracted by the next raping and drugging celebrity scandal. The Republicans want the Latino vote just as much as the Democrats, and you have to carry Florida to win the presidency.
This is how we do things now. You decide what you "Like," sort of like Facebook, and then approve of anything tending in that direction, regardless of how we get there. All tyrannies begin this way, with the casual acquiescence in methods you know are wrong, but you like the results, so you let it go. Until the same arbitrary methods are turned against you, and then you wish, too late, that we had a Constitution again.
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