Constitutional Crisis: Mass Amnesty By Executive Order

Amnesty is part of the President of the United States pardon authority, but only on a case-by-case, individual basis. To issue an executive order to blanket amnesty for millions without congressional approval is unconstitutional - unlawful use of executive power. None of those visa extensions or pardons for illegal immigrants received any civil background check.

We have seen the “Change” that Barack Hussein Obama had in mind in 2008, enacted via probably the most corrupted administration in the history of the United States by a president who had stated that he could not declare amnesty for so many illegal immigrants without congressional approval. Using his lawyer skills to circumvent law, more like polluting it, President Obama has done just what he said he could not do lawfully.

He does this despite the clear facts and statistics that show what Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) was told by Sheriff Arpaio, Maricopa County:

I was told by Sheriff Arpaio he’s had some that have been in his prison 10 times or more for different crimes – 10 different crimes. So they’ve been arrested, flagged by INS, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, released, back in jail, arrested on another crime a few months later or a year later.

On November 19^th, President Obama declared he will use my lawful authority as president to issue an executive order.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas stated:

We are unfortunately witnessing a constitutional crisis. What President Obama's doing is he is defying the law, he's defying the Constitution.

He and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky intend to challenge him. Senator Cruz has a plan to counter the president without a government shutdown, stating:

Let me be absolutely clear: there is no Republican, not one, who wants a government shutdown. The only person on this planet who wants a government shutdown is President Obama. What I think Congress should do is we should use the constitutional authority that we're given as checks and balances to rein in a despotic executives.

Senator Cruz called for refusal to confirm any presidential nominees and use the congressional power to control funding, which means adding 'riders' to funding bills that prevents funding being spent on illegal amnesty.

Senator Cruz added:

If the president wants to veto it, he can shut down DHS. That would be a wrong and irresponsible response. But listen, a presidential temper tantrum is not a rational response. What the Constitution requires, if you want to change immigration law -- and I think we need common sense immigration reform -- the way to do it is the president has to work with Congress. You have to compromise. You have to reach a middle ground. This president doesn't want to do that.

Senator Rand Paul urged the House of Representatives to quickly pass a resolution that states that Obama's executive action is “contrary to the will” of the House.

It is also contrary to the will of the people, according to several polls on the issue, even the majority of Hispanics who are legal citizens are against amnesty.

Democrats and their supporters have continually stated that Obama is doing the same thing that Ronald Reagan did.

Rush Limbaugh stated he never did this to his radio listeners. President Reagan signed a bill for legislation legally passing majority vote in House and Senate called the Simpson-Mazzoli Act [Immigration Reform and Control Act]. Was it a mistake? Yes. For soon after the illegal immigration influx jumped in numbers. Reason: If they could stay in the US long enough with great numbers, another amnesty would be declared. It allowed amnesty for illegal immigrants, about three million, who qualified. It occurred in 1986.

Another thing about the amnesty is that President Obama has taken upon himself to ignore law in place and rewrite the regulations governing work permits and Social Security number allocations.

David Frum, The Atlantic, wrote:

...there are huge differences between Obama's executive amnesty and the actions of Reagan did in 1986 and George H.W. Bush in 1990. …

1. "Reagan and Bush acted in conjunction with Congress and in furtherance of a congressional purpose, while Obama's executive order would not further a congressional purpose." In fact, Obama's order "is intended to overpower and overmaster a recalcitrant Congress," Frum said.
2. Reagan and Bush legalized far fewer people than Obama apparently plans to do. Obama's two rounds of amnesty -- first the young "Dreamers" and now their parents -- could affect as many as 5 million people, Frum wrote, and thus "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" who received amnesty under the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act.
3. "The Reagan-Bush examples are not positive ones." Frum says the 1986 amnesty did not work as promised, as illegal immigration actually increased in the years after the amnesty. "Let's not repeat their mistake," he wrote.

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?" Frum asks. "What we have here is not a validation of the correctness of President Obama’s action. It’s...an effort to curtail argument rather than enlighten it."
   

President Obama is not just giving amnesty to illegal Mexicans and Central Americans and both sides of the political aisle has been ignoring the laws like listed in the following chart for decades. 

Michelle Malkin wrote:

When it rains, it pours. Just before unveiling his colossal administrative amnesty for millions of "undocumented" aliens and foreign tech workers on Thursday, President Obama separately ordered up to 8,000 more executive pardons and special work passes for Liberians, Sierra Leoneans and Guineans illegally in this country. The same administration that refused to enact travel bans from Ebola-plagued West African nations to protect Americans is now granting "temporary protected status"... In October, the White House extended TPS status and employment permits for an estimated 90,000 illegal alien Hondurans and Nicaraguans "for an additional 18 months, effective Jan. 6, 2015, through July 5, 2016."  Last October, the Obama administration extended TPS to an estimated 3,000 Syrian illegal aliens; the status will be up for renewal next March. At least 3,700 Liberians who have been here since 1991 on TPS won deferred deportations in September before securing renewed TPS status this week. And several hundred Somalis remain in the country with TPS first granted in 1991, along with some 700 Sudanese who first secured TPS benefits in 1997. TPS for both the Sudanese and Somalis was extended in September and lasts until May 2016. ... An estimated 250,000 illegal aliens from El Salvador first won TPS golden tickets after an earthquake struck the country in January 2001.
In addition, 60,000 illegal alien Haitians received TPS after earthquakes in their homeland in 2010. Their "temporary" status was renewed in March and extended "for an additional 18 months, effective July 23, 2014, through Jan. 22, 2016." ...

A homeland security source pointed out to me recently that the agency is still failing to check biometric records (or, even worse, ignoring them) before granting immigration benefits to aliens who had been put into removal proceedings but then gamed the system by using new, unvetted aliases. Moreover, after more than two decades, the federal government still doesn't have an entry-exit database in place to track legal short-term visa holders.

Republicans want to first secure the border and then discuss the best solution and expanding a visa program for high-skilled workers. It should be noted here, that “high-skilled workers” or few skilled workers cross our border illegally.

Keith Koffler at White House Dossier wrote:

...It was not anger, not frustration, not sarcasm, and not contempt. It was just sadness. It was a feeling that something had died. This is a turning point. This is a new nation. Fundamentally changed. If we are indeed to become a country in which the chief executive ignores laws and does as he pleases, then we are finished. … It’s worth remembering that dictatorships are often, technically, justifiable enterprises. Those who rule absolutely love to point to some provision that offers a rationale for - or rather, even, compels – their exercise of unchecked power. … In all the years I have covered Washington and watched as wrong and even abusive things were done, I have never felt such a sense of loss. … Do as you please. It is the philosophy of the Left, inflicted upon the country from the 1960s onward. The Left half a century ago began seizing our educational system and the media, and now we have become a country too much in the thrall of its ideas. It’s a wonder, and a testament to the strength of the American character and its resistance to corruption, that conservatives are elected at all.

The Founders of this country understood very well that their written construct, the Constitution, could not secure our freedom. That the nation would have to produce virtuous people to lead it, people who understood the good thing that had been done and would act to preserve, protect and defend it. “A Republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin responded when asked what had been created at the Constitutional Convention. Today, there are not such virtuous people in charge of the executive branch. They are people who believe might makes right. And they our floating our country toward a sad, sinking, senescence.

Well, Obama certainly kept his campaign promise of “Change”; unfortunately, those who voted for him didn't bother to get the details of what he had in mind. All they thought about was electing the first 'black' president, free cell phones, and Obamacare. And that part is sad as well, because there are far better African Americans among us who could have created a presidential legacy that Americans could be proud of. Instead, barring progressive “historians” rewriting history as they do in our children's textbooks, it will go down as one of the most corrupt presidencies; making Richard Nixon look like a saint.
As Cynthia Lummis, House Representative for Wyoming stated: Amnesty is unacceptable. 

Sad, indeed, and not the "Hope and Change" that Americans want.

Liberty, under every conceivable Form of government is always in Danger. It is so even under a simple, or perfect Democracy, more so under a mixed Government, like the Republic of Rome, and still more so under a limited Monarchy. ... Ambition is one of the more ungovernable Passions of the human heart.  -- John Adams, Revolutionary Writings, 1755-1775; page 215

Latest: Obama brags that he changed the law.