Hillary Clinton Makes 12 Million Illegal Aliens Citizens

Hillary Clinton, on the campaign trail, accused Donald Trump of wanting to deport 12 million Americans. He has said, though he is not consistent in this, that he wants to deport 12 million illegal aliens.  Hillary, being a Clinton, may well say that she is right because most of the illegal aliens, no undocumented persons, are from either North America (Mexico and Central American states) or from South America, so they are Americans.  But for political reasons, she is trying to create the impression that she is conferring legal status on all of the illegal aliens, whose votes she wants in the future for the Democrats and whose U.S. citizen relatives or countrymen she wants to vote for her now.  Democrats being Democrats, she is actually not at all fussy about whether her voters are really citizens of the U.S. or not.  This is only too evident in past elections and in the opposition to voter identification.

It is the Content, not the Number of Executive Orders that Matters

I just made the following comment to an article by Shadee Ashtari of the Huffington Post called Obama Has Issued Fewer Executive Orders Than Any President In Past 100 Years:

Counting the number of Executive Orders and claiming that all orders are justified by a given President if he has issued fewer than prior Presidents is complete nonsense. It is perfectly reasonable and consistent with the President's position as an executive to issue orders, so long as they do not interfere with the laws passed by Congress and signed by himself or a prior President. It is the content of the Executive Order that is all-important.

A very legitimate Executive Order would establish an interim policy for the enforcement of a law properly passed by Congress in which a real ambiguity was discovered while trying to implement it or in which an unanticipated situation arose which made enforcing the law clearly contrary to common sense. Upon issuing the Executive Order in such a case for an interim policy, the President should take the matter to Congress and ask Congress to resolve the ambiguity or treat with the circumstance with a new law. His interim policy should be carefully constructed not to infringe upon the constitutional powers of Congress by creating an effect Congress cannot readily re-direct with a new law.

Reagan's Executive Order on immigration was an attempt to implement a new law passed by Congress. That law had the unanticipated circumstance that the children of parents given amnesty by Congress were not themselves given amnesty. This was a truly unanticipated result tied largely to the Cuban refugee influx. George H. W. Bush was also trying to deal with unanticipated results of the fairly new immigration and naturalization law, though on a bigger scale. Obama, however, is doing by Executive Order what Congress under both George W. Bush and under Obama has refused to do. That refusal makes it clear that Obama is acting in opposition to many sessions of Congress and not just trying to deal with an ambiguity or unanticipated consequence of a recent law, which Congress has not yet had time to rectify. Congress has had time and has refused, which is it right to do under the Constitution. A President who defies that right is a despot.

There are even more common reasons for Executive Orders.  There are bound to be management issues in running the large executive branch which Congress simply does not wish to micromanage.  Examples might be how shall job performance evaluations be written up, what accounting method will be used to deal with a kind of situation, which federal land will be leased for oil and gas development next, etc.  One of the essential restrictions of a valid Executive Order is that only federal employees in the Executive Branch are required to take actions in response to the Executive Order.  The President cannot order any other American to do anything without the consent and authorization of Congress.

There is a better case, though a weak one, for Obama saying he will not use limited Homeland Security manpower and funding to deport some of the illegal aliens he has decided not to deport.  But, it is 100% clear that Obama is not empowered by the Constitution to have work permits issued to those he is not acting to deport.  That is very clearly a power that would reside only with Congress.

Ruling Against Arizona Immigration Law Would Set Broad Precedent Against State Assistance to Federal Law Enforcement

U. S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, "Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?"  I assume in the context it was clear she was talking about those here illegally.  The Obama Justice Department is arguing that the Arizona law be declared unconstitutional because it is preempted by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.  The judge seems critical of this preemption argument in her questioning.  She is being asked to grant a preliminary injunction against the Arizona law to keep it from taking effect while the federal challenge in the courts proceeds.

The Arizona law, SB1070, empowers police to question those they have a "reasonable suspicion" are illegal immigrants and send them to federal authorities for possible deportation.  The government argues that the supremacy clause of the Constitution requires that the Arizona law be ruled unconstitutional.  The fact that the Arizona law in no way contradicts the federal law apparently does not matter to the federal government.  The fact that the Arizona law simply has Arizona police asking the federal authorities to check to see if the person is here illegally and if they are not, they will be delivered to the federal authorities who will decide whether to deport them or not, does not matter.  Clearly, the Arizona law and Arizona police are not taking over the critical decisions of fact or interfering with the decision to deport or not.  They are simply assisting the federal decision makers.

Kneedler also argued that the Arizona law is an interference in foreign policy because it is making foreign governments mad.  Since when do foreign governments get to decide when U.S. laws will be enforced inside the U.S.? 

Kneedler also complained that federal agencies may be overwhelmed with immigration status checks and deportation requests.  The federal government is making the case that they wish to enforce federal law selectively.  That is, for person A, it will be enforced, but not for person B.  Does this mean the personal income tax should be enforced selectively also?  Perhaps the anti-trust laws should be enforced selectively?  Actually, they are.  Should the prohibition against laws abridging freedom of speech be selective?  Clearly the Democrat Congress thinks they should be.  Should the federal laws against murdering Federal judges or Congressmen be enforced selectively?  Ooopps, maybe not that one.

It is a bad principle of law when laws are not enforced equally against all lawbreakers.  If a law is a valid attempt to protect the equal, sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as all laws are in a legitimate government, then it must be equally enforced.  If it cannot be equally enforced, then it should not be law.

The Arizona law is clearly constitutional.  But, if it is determined by the courts that the law is unconstitutional, this will have a silver lining.  Basically, the finding would set the precedent that state cooperation with federal authorities to enforce federal laws is itself an interference with federal preemption!  Given that most federal laws, unlike immigration law, are unconstitutional because they are not based on powers given to the federal government, which are few and mostly pertain to foreign powers, and that many such laws are actually interferences with the state police power or the rights retained by individuals, it would be a great thing if the states and local governments could use the precedent of the overthrow of the Arizona law as justification for not assisting the federal government in any enforcement of federal law.  Federal authorities would then clearly have the books loaded with laws they could not enforce, except very selectively and infrequently.  That may result in the People understanding that these laws should not be on the books and need in most cases to be repealed.  It may result in many police powers being returned to the states and many rights violations by the federal government being ended.

How did these many federal infringements come about?  Teddy Roosevelt.  He was the first President who believed and even said that if he thought something should be done, he would do it if the Constitution did not explicitly tell him he could not do it.  Since the Constitution was written under the philosophy that the federal government had few powers and they were each carefully enumerated, there was no effort to create a list of the infinite number of powers an illegitimate government or a megalomaniac President might claim, but which were denied to them.  By inverting the purpose of the Constitution, Teddy Roosevelt gave himself a clean slate to become the tyrant he wished to become.  He observed that he saw no problem with a huge concentration of power in the hands of one leader.  Neither did Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Obama.