Attempting to help pre-sell the unilateral amnesty plan to be announced tonight by President Obama, the Associated Press, leftist politicians Nancy Pelosi and Luis Gutierrez, and other supporters of Obama are falsely claiming that Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued the same kind of amnesty executive orders. This misinformation is also a tactic to divert attention from Obama’s unconstitutional action and its disastrous future consequences, making GOP opposition look partisan and hypocritical. The hope is that the general public will think the amnesty edict controversy is just another petty political squabble.
Two legal scholars at the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky and John G. Malcolm, on Wednesday set the record straight, explaining that Reagan and Bush made executive corrections in keeping with the intent of the 1986 amnesty law passed by Congress, while Obama plans to grant a mass amnesty when Congress has refused to pass such a law.
“In short, while Reagan and Bush worked closely with Congress to implement the comprehensive legislation that Congress had passed (in the case of Reagan) or would pass shortly thereafter (in the case of Bush), Obama is bypassing Congress entirely. He is unconstitutionally revising existing law and, without congressional approval, imposing new ones that have been explicitly rejected by Congress time and time again, thereby setting himself up as a kingmaker (or king) on immigration policy.
By doing so, the president is establishing a dangerous precedent that violates fundamental principles of separation of powers that serve as a bulwark to protect our liberties and that establish a government of laws and not of men.”
Posted 11/20/14 by Margaret Hull