Obama's actions lawful, top legal scholars say-

Reagan and Bush Offer No Precedent for Obama's Amnesty Order
Not only were past executive actions smaller, they didn't work.

“What about Reagan in 1987? And George H.W. Bush in 1990?”

This has become a favorite Democratic and center-left rebuttal to Republicans angry at reports that President Obama may soon grant residency and working papers to as many as 5 million illegal aliens. If Obama acts, he’d rely on precedents set by Republican predecessors. Surely that should disbar today’s Republicans from complaining?

Surely not, and for four reasons.

1) Reagan and Bush acted in conjunction with Congress and in furtherance of a congressional purpose. In 1986, Congress passed a full-blown amnesty, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, conferring residency rights on some 3 million people. Simpson-Mazzoli was sold as a “once and for all” solution to the illegal immigration problem: amnesty now, to be followed by strict enforcement in future. Precisely because of their ambition, the statute’s authors were confounded when their broad law generated some unanticipated hard cases. The hardest were those in which some members of a single family qualified for amnesty, while others did not. Nobody wanted to deport the still-illegal husband of a newly legalized wife. Reagan’s (relatively small) and Bush’s (rather larger) executive actions tidied up these anomalies. Although Simpson-Mazzoli itself had been controversial, neither of these follow-ups was.

Executive action by President Obama, however, would follow not an act of Congress but a prior executive action of his own: his suspension of enforcement against so-called Dreamers in June 2012.

A new order would not further a congressional purpose. It is intended to overpower and overmaster a recalcitrant Congress. Two presidents of two different parties have repeatedly called upon Congress to pass a second large amnesty. Congress has repeatedly declined. Each Congress elected since 2006 has been less favorable to amnesty than the previous one, and the Congress elected this month is the least favorable of all. Obama talks as if Congress’s refusal to fall in with his wishes somehow justifies him in acting alone. He may well have the legal power to do so. But it hardly enhances the legitimacy of his action. Certainly he is not entitled to cite as precedent the examples of presidents who did act together with Congress.

2) Reagan and Bush legalized much smaller numbers of people than Obama is said to have in mind. While today's advocates cite a figure of 1.5 million people among those potentially affected by Bush's order, only about 140,000 people ultimately gained legal status this way, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data as reviewed by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. (Updated: Krikorian reconsidered the numbers and now concludes the true figure is even lower—less than 50,000.) Obama’s June 2012 grant of residency to the so-called “Dreamers”, people who were brought to the United States illegally as children, could potentially reach 1.4 million people. His next round of amnesty, which is advertised as benefiting the parents of the Dreamers and other illegal-alien parents of U.S. resident children, could reach as many as 5 million people.

Put it another way: If all the potential of Obama’s past and next action is realized, he would—acting on his own authority and in direct contravention of the wishes of Congress—have granted residency and work rights to more than double the number of people amnestied by Simpson-Mazzoli, until now the most far-reaching immigration amnesty in U.S. history.

As the philosopher liked to point out, at a certain point, a difference in quantity becomes a difference in quality.

3) The Reagan-Bush examples are not positive ones. The 1986 amnesty did not work as promised. It was riddled with fraud. The enforcement provisions were ignored or circumvented. Illegal immigration actually increased in the years after the amnesty. The supposed "once and for all” solution almost immediately gave rise to an even larger version of the original problem.

The argument that “Reagan and Bush did it,” is essentially an argument that future generations should not learn from the errors of previous generations. With the advantage of experience, it is clear that their decisions did not produce the desired result, and actually greatly worsened the problem they sought to solve. Let’s not repeat their mistake.

4) The invocation of the Reagan and Bush cases exemplifies the bad tendency of political discussion to degenerate into an exchange of scripted talking points. “Oh yeah? Well, this guy you liked also did this thing you don’t like!” Is that really supposed to convince anybody? What we have here is not a validation of the correctness of President Obama’s action. It’s the shaking of a fetish, an effort to curtail argument rather than enlighten it.

It’s a style of argument borrowed from the late-night cable-comedy shows, in which a clip of somebody saying something at some point in the past is supposed to estop that person—or anybody in any way connected to him, or supportive of him, or even mostly but not entirely admiring of him—from ever saying anything different in the future. But a zinger is not a rebuttal. In this case, with all the huge differences between Obama’s situation and those of his predecessors, it does not even zing.


http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-argument-defending-executive-amnesty/382906/

So now that Reagan is the hero of the left let's hear that you learned like he did amnesty was a mistake without a secure border and that tax cuts are best for getting the economy striving again.

 

Why don't you try listening to them and paying attention to what they have passed and sent to the Senate the last couple of years.

You know they have not even been sworn in yet and all committee's assigned. What is the rush, Obama could have had it passed 6 years ago and didn't do it, he could have exercised this same action 6 months ago and he didn't do it. Why it is SOOOO important they pass something during this lame duck period instead of waiting a month and the new congress gets seated?

I've been hearing it over and over and over, get yourself some better news sources and if you think there is a contrast to make then make it YOU cite them here and make your contrast.

 

Why we stand for the continuing and more egregious actions and illegal mandates from Obama is a mystery that can probably never be honestly answered. At least not yet.

 

That would be a blanket clemency not a pardon, a pardon happens after a conviction. So I guess he could offer a blanket clemency to all abortion protesters who attack abortion clinics and the left would remain silent?

 

Now rectify Herbert Hoover's Executive Action precedence on Immigration.
max

 

???? Handing out SS cards and work permits has nothing to do with the enforcement of immigration law that requires conviction for a crime and deportation.

 

Along with the opponents of marriage equality, those who think they can find some illegality in the President's actions....could use a LOT more legal expertise.

They seem to be under the impression it's an "open and shut case"....but their ideology and politics is blinding them to the fact that the President was smart enough to consult legal experts too....any of which could be called in as a witness or file amicus.

 

There is no path to permanent legal resident let alone path to citizenship. He is requiring those who work to get legal with work papers and to pay into SS. Alien immigrants get no benefits. He's making them get legal, pay in to SS with no benefits, and get in line.

Only in the world of far right outrage would requiring these folks to become legal be considered an outrage.
Think it through. His executive action prioritizes enforcement.
The working papers and SS is so that they conform to the EXISTING law.
This is not a signifier of new law ordained by the Executive branch.
It's enforcement priority and the order to comply with existing law.
The arguments here are irrational. Wonder why?

max

 

If Obama is following law (IF) and the illegal aliens he proposes to include in his prosecutorial discretion are still not legal in any way, but merely on hold (as it were) where is the legal authority to grant SS, work permits, driver's licenses, etc. that Obama has affirmatively assigned to them? Federal immigration law hasn't changed in any way, has it? It's still illegal to give Social Security status and permission to work to people here in direct violation of long time federal immigration law...isn't it?

If I've missed a step or am wrong about federal immigration law please let me know. It's just that your argument is irrational. And I wonder why.

You and Obama (and his "constitutional scholars") have some explaining to do and there has been a serious misstep here.
You can't claim these illegals haven't been legalized and then give them things only citizens of the United States of America have the right to.
See you in court, Barry.

 

Except that those laws remain on the books and Obama is acting in accordance with them as precedent.

 

Lets just put it this way. Those "top legal minds" have the collective heads so far up Obama's ass they can see what he had for breakfast!!!!!

 

Take look at the Visa process. That's where this begins. Not at the supposed porous border.

You erroneously assume that the 4 plus million undocumented workers covered by this executive action sneaked across a porous border. Of course you would -- it's the narrative fed you through hate radio and right wing television.

The truth is the Immigration System is so bogged down many of these folks were here on Visa's that have expired while they attempted to gain citizenship or permanent status. That's kind of the whole point of needing to reform the system. That seems to be lost in the OUTRAGE.

There is no way to know the exact numbers. But commonsense tells one that if New York and New Jersey are two of the states that have the most undocumented workers...

And the states with the fastest growing illegal immigrant population are New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia...


And these states do not border Mexico....

When it's clearly known that at least 1/3 of the undocumented workers in this country are not from Latin America....

It is pretty easy to see that a significant portion of these undocumented workers didn't sneak through the border.
The were already here on Visas that have expired.

SS and Work permits are part of this Visa process. Hence my comment about EXISTING Law
What we are witnessing here is you creating your own reality to justify your outrage.
That's fine. Just don't expect us to take much away from your postings.

max

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This is deep thinking.
max

 

Bush claimed he had legal authority to strike a "preemptive" attack on Iraq in order to avert Armageddon but legal experts like Ben Ferencz he should have gone on trial for war crimes. The right wing had (and still have) their brains stuck up his ass and continue to defend him for his war crimes. Ferencz participated in Nuremburg so he knew all about the appropriate legal precedence.

 

And he had the authorization to do so under the legislation enacted by Congress. Here obama is acting without any such authorization

 

USA is bound by international law set by Nuremberg precedent so that Congressional action was still illegal. This is precisely what Ferencz said - he was at that trial so he knew better than anyone else.

 

Actualy those laws have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the illegal immigrants Obama is allowing to stay. The 86 legislation permitted ONLY those who arrived in the US before 1982, to remain. Obamas executive action is applicable to those who arrived AFTER 1982

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The UN has endorsed our actions.

 

Even Kofi Annan said the war was illegal:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3661134.stm

 

No one claimed there was. Try to resist the temptation to grasp for refuge in the first strawman you can dream up.

 

"Our No. 1 priority is to make Barack Obama a one-term president." Nice attempt at unification there, Mitch.

 

A republican-controlled think tank says he does have the authority. The Justice Department says he has the authority. He has the authority.

 

All I can tell you is that Republican think-tanks and the Justice Department say he does have the authority. And since McConnell and Boehner refuse to impeach him for alleged abuses of authority, they must be derelict in their duties.

 

He was never a Constitutional Law professor, but a guest lecturer.

Second, those 3 profs are liars.

Glad we settled this. Dumb thread.

.

 

The Justice Department does not decide constitutionality, SCOTUS does. The Justice Department does the bidding of the President and they don't always get away with their shenanigans.

 

I said the UN. KOFI's personal opinions have no legal authority.

 

Exclusively by congressional legislation, not the whim of presidents. Use your head man.