Executive Amnesty Threatens Rule of Law

This past Thursday President Obama announced his plan to give executive amnesty to approximately 5 million undocumented immigrants. This action has a direct effect on San Diego, and is certain to come as a relief to our community’s approximately 180,000 undocumented immigrants, even as reactions elsewhere are more hostile. I object to this move on policy grounds, as I’ve outlined before, predominately because this action will further stagnate wages and stigmatize the Hispanic community. But the more concerning aspect of the President’s action is its impact on our constitutional republic and rule of law.

There is a meme that says, for all of President Obama’s legal qualifications, he must not understand the law very well. In support of the meme, critics of the President say the “constitutional lawyer in the oval office” has a poor track record in Supreme Court litigation.  The President’s actions on immigration this past week are sure to revive past criticism of executive legislating and lead to renewed conclusions that the President doesn’t understand the Constitutional scheme.