Writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, libertarian
George Mason University law professor David Bernstein makes the
case against President Barack Obama’s forthcoming unilateral
executive action on immigration:
Immigration reform is one of the few issues on which I generally
agree with the Obama Administration. And from what I can tell, it’s
probably not illegal or unconstitutional for President Obama to
defer action on millions of immigrants, and then grant the adults
work permits. Nevertheless, he shouldn’t do it.
Previous presidents have had the same discretion under the
immigration laws that Obama has. But no president had ever used his
immigration discretion simply to evade Congressional opposition to
his policies, nor to extend de facto legal status to so many
people. It corrodes public respect for the legal system when the
president uses loopholes to evade the normal legislative process
and enact an extremely controversial, wide-ranging policy that
Congress has rejected. And if President Obama can do this with
regard to immigration, what’s to stop future presidents, including
conservative Republican presidents, from using similar tactics? Bad
behavior by one president inevitably becomes precedent for bad
behavior by future presidents.
Read the whole thing
here.
Earlier today at Reason.com, Judge Andrew Napolitano made the
case for why Obama’s actions
will violate the Constitution: “The American people, Congress
and the courts need to know we have a president who will enforce
the laws, whether he agrees with them in his heart or not. Without
presidential fidelity to the rule of law, we have a king, not a
president.”
Back in August, Reason’s Shikha Dalmia argued that Obama is
fully justified in using executive power in this context:
“Whether [conservatives] like it or not, existing immigration laws
give the president vast discretion to temporarily legalize an
unlimited number of foreigners.”
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1vtmzzH
via IFTTT