Legal Illegal Immigration

President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly that blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30; who are in, or graduated from, high school or have served in the military; and who have not been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors. And while most Americans sympathize with helping those who were brought into the United States as toddlers, were raised as de facto Americans, and followed the rules, the policy of exempting hundreds of thousands en masse may create far more problems in the long run than it solves.

First was the cynical timing. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House and could easily have enacted such a law over all opposition. So why was the edict handed down in a tough campaign year?

Then there is a problem of constitutionality, an especially serious issue for former constitutional-law lecturer Barack Obama, who ran on the premise that he would restore respect for the separation of powers. But as seen in the reversal of the order of the Chrysler creditors, the attempt to shut down a non-union Boeing plant in South Carolina, the decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and the recent use of executive privilege not to hand over Fast and Furious documents, this administration sometimes just bypasses a now-difficult Congress to rule by fiat.

The move contradicts Obama’s earlier claim that a de facto amnesty “would not conform with my appropriate role as president.” He later reiterated that “some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own,” but “that’s not how our system works.”...

The president’s decision is politically tainted, constitutionally suspect, cynically timed, and poorly thought out....