Even the Washington Post Warns that Obama’s Unilateral Action on Immigration Sets a Very Dangerous Precedent

I am
an open borders kind of guy. In general, if you’ve got the gumption
to get here, then you’ve got what it takes to be an American.
Congress should long ago have adopted legislation that would enable
undocumented immigrants to get on the path toward citizenship.

That being said, what President Obama is about to do tonight
with regard to immigration is very dangerous to our constitutional
order. And I am not alone in thinking so. Earlier this week, the
editorial board of the Washington Post warned the
president and the progressive peanut gallery of the danger inherent
in trying to set immigration policy via fiat. The Post
op-ed, “In
Mr. Obama’s own words, acting alone is ‘not how our democracy
functions’,” the editorial board sketched out this future
scenario:

It is 2017. Newly elected President Ted Cruz (R) insists he has
won a mandate to repeal Obamacare. The Senate, narrowly back in
Democratic hands, disagrees. Mr. Cruz instructs the Internal
Revenue Service not to collect a fine from anyone who opts out of
the individual mandate to buy health insurance, thereby neutering a
key element of the program. It is a matter of prosecutorial
discretion, Mr. Cruz explains; tax cheats are defrauding the
government of billions, and he wants the IRS to concentrate on
them. Of course, he is willing to modify his order as soon as
Congress agrees to fix what he considers a “broken” health
system.

That is not a perfect analogy to Mr. Obama’s proposed
action on immigration. But it captures the unilateral spirit that
Mr. Obama seems to have embraced since Republicans swept to
victory in the midterm elections.

Giving presidents the notion that they can pick and choose
(discretion) which laws to enforce destroys the rule of law and
leads toward tyranny.