I was on a really nice date tonight — mostly just talked for hours — and then I came back post-date to this. The President has decided that he will no longer enforce valid immigration law, because he does not think it is good law. Notice that this is not an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, although it appears as one in form. It is an executive repeal of legislative law that was passed under and in no way violates the Constitutional compact. Don’t take it from me; take it from his Secretary of Homeland Security:
“I’ve been dealing with immigration enforcement for 20 years and the plain fact of the matter is that the law that we’re working under doesn’t match the economic needs of the country today and the law enforcement needs of the country today,” Napolitano told CNN. “But as someone who is charged with enforcing the immigration system, we’re setting good, strong, sensible priorities, and again these young people really are not the individuals that the immigration removal process was designed to focus upon.”
I wrote this immediately. I haven’t read the commentaries, I haven’t delved into the legal background, I haven’t glanced at the election impact. Maybe everyone on the Right is saying this; maybe I’m alone. But it’s from the heart:
I count myself deeply sympathetic to immigrants, and loyally trace my family line back to Kate Durkin, the bold Irish woman whose family shipped her here in the depths of the potato famine — because they could not feed her. She started with nothing, ended with little, and sacrificed everything to get our family on its feet. She came over in an era before immigration was at all restricted, and I know how broken our modern immigration system is. I have a lot of worries about the DREAM Act specifically, but I do, in general, support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Let them pay their debt to our society and get on with living.
All that being said, this order is a flagrant, brazen violation of President Obama’s oath of office. “I do solemnly swear,” he said three years ago, “that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” His office — his sole and highest duty — is to faithfully execute the law. That’s not me talking; that’s the Constitution. Presidents have bent the law, often, in service of dire needs, but to simply come out and announce that you, personally, have decided Congress is acting “too slowly” and isn’t showing enough compassion, and therefore you have decided to ignore valid law is — was — unthinkable. I’m frankly astonished, partly that the President is willing to do this, but mostly because he apparently believes he’ll get away with it. What should terrify all Americans is that he might.
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