06/22/2010
H/T the ever-vigilant Federale blog for The Obama Amnesty , June 22, 2010.It appears that the Obama Regime is considering end-running Congress and imposing Amnesty by administrative fiat. This plan is, as Federale put it when first publicizing the ”deferred action” stratagem last year, to
to give all illegal aliens parole status then allow them to apply for work and family based adjustment of status/visas, give the applications preliminary approval and then an Employment Authorization Card, order Customs and Border Protection to allow the parolees to travel in and out of the U.S., but not give the illegals "final" approval until it is authorized by Congress. But that will only be a formality, as with work authorization and the ability to travel, the illegals will be legal permanent residents in all but name. Then the Obama Regime will dare Congress to not provide the visa numbers or legal authorization to convert all the paroled illegal aliens to legal permanent residentsI discussed the idea in Congress, Shmongress — Amnesty: Yes We Can February 24, 2009. As Federale points out, the idea appears to have originated in an article The Path Less Taken: Is There An Alternative To Waiting For Comprehensive Immigration Reform? By Gary Endelman and Cyrus D. Mehta ILW.com, which I described as
a poisonous sophistry designed to end-run American Constitutional proceduresSound incredible? Then why did Senator Orrin Hatch R-UT (NumbersUSA career ranking only C+) and seven other Republican send a letter yesterday to President Obama yesterday denouncing the idea?
We understand that there’s a push for your Administration to develop a plan to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States…While deferred action and parole are Executive Branch authorities, they should not be used to circumvent Congress’ constitutional authority to legislate immigration policy, particularly as it relates to the illegal population in the United States … .
We would appreciate receiving a commitment that the Administration has no plans to use either authority to change the current position of a large group of illegal aliens already in the United States, and ask that you respond to us about this matter as soon as possible.
Federale correctly notes
The interesting thing is that the proposed action by the Regime is what is euphemistically called "deferred action." Deferred action has no place in any law, especially not the Immigration and Nationality Act. Deferred action is more accurately in law called "non-feasance," which is not taking an action required by law. It is just the window dressing that various administrations have given to not fulfilling their oaths of office to ensure that the laws of the United States faithfully executed.Predictably, this letter by eight Senators on a topic of white-hot public interest appears to have been totally ignored by the MSM. In fact none of the news emails from the lavishly-funded allegedly restrictionist immigration reform outfits FAIR, NumbersUSA or CIS which I get have mentioned have yet mentioned it.Of course the Obama Regime has been practicing applying deferred action; ending worksite enforcement and releasing illegal aliens who have been arrested.
Looks like Peter Brimelow was correct on Sunday:
… I’ve always felt uneasy about Joe’s confidence about amnesty. Maybe this attack on Arizona is a straw in the wind. Maybe Obama really is going to try to amnesty all those illegals a.k.a. undocumented DemocratsHe is probably right about the reason too.
PS I see NumbersUSA this afternoon posted an alert Comprehensive Amnesty Threat on its website.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.