It isn't a secret:
President Barack Obama's vow to go-it-alone on immigration reform can be far-reaching: His 2012 executive action to defer some deportations has already given "temporary reprieve" to 550,000 illegal immigrants, Bloomberg reports.
It can also be illegal and unconstitutional.
But politics may ultimately rein him in.
Why? Hasn't dissuaded his tyrannical impulses so far. Or are you saying that the "constitutional law professor" didn't know there were strict constitutional limitations on his executive power and so set about to so flagrantly abuse them that "politics" would impose some, all so that he couldn't become any more of a dictator than he was already? Wow, he's deep.
By the way, how long will they last? He tends toward a bit 'o flightiness, too.
"As a legal matter, his discretion is really broad," UCLA law professor Hiroshi Motomura told Bloomberg Monday. "As a political matter, I think it’s much more constrained."
"As a legal matter," his discretion is quite constrained.
Article II, Section
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office [i.e. before he's sworn in and actually becomes POTUS], he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation [i.e. promise, showing that he understands the nature, extend, and limitations of the powers he is assuming - which is to say, making an enforceable oral contract]: - "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." [emphases added]
"Preserve" means "to keep alive or in existence; make lasting; to keep safe from harm or injury; protect or spare; to keep up; maintain".
"Protect" means "to defend or guard from attack, invasion, loss, annoyance, insult, etc.; cover or shield from injury or danger".
"Defend" means "to ward off attack from; guard against assault or injury (usually followed by from or against)".
So at the proverbial 30,000-foot level the job of POTUS is to keep the U.S. Constitution in place as the law of the land as written, and guard it against any and all who would attack it by unlawfully changing its original intent or by ignoring it in whole or in part. This is accomplished by the "faithful execution of the Laws (Article II, Section 3).
Notice that nothing in Article II, which sets forth all the ins, outs, and details of "the executive Power," makes any mention of law-making. That is because Article I, Section 1 unequivocally makes law-making a "legislative Power herein granted [and] vested in a Congress of the United States".
Congress makes law via bills, POTUS signs or vetoes them, Congress overrides him or not. Once bills become law, POTUS executes said law, so long as it is constitutional, whether he likes it or not. That's the way it's supposed to work. There is no "broad discretion" involved.
The "discretion" to which Hiroshi Motomura refers is what is called "prosecutorial" discretion, which is supposed to mean the practice of whether or not, or to what extent, to prosecute lawbreakers on a case-by-case basis. Making decisions at the fuzzy fractal boundaries of statutes based upon evidence and the stipulations of the particular law(s) in question. In other words, discretion within the law. It does not mean the Executive Branch may decide whether or not a particular law or laws will be executed at all on the basis of policy preferences. In an Article II context, that exceeds "prosecutorial discretion" and enters the realm of constitutional discretion, and that is to be exercised by the Executive when legislation arrives on his desk for signature (approval) or veto (disapproval). In an Article I context, that is a usurpation of "the legislative Power" and is legally invalid and unconstitutional.
Or, in plain, non-Vulcan English, Barack Obama's discretion in the execution of immigration laws (Article IV, Section 4: "The United States....shall protect each of [the States] against Invasion....") is.....quite constrained. Legally and constitutionally speaking, that is.
In even more prosaic terms, the United States Code is not a buffet in which O is supposed to be able to indulge in the red meat, starch, and dessert sections and ignore Michelle's salad and tofu bar. Which would be indicative of how garishly he has exceeded his executive powers....
....if he was capable of gaining weight.
If Congress won't act on something Barack Obama believes it should, it is his job to....persuade them to act. He does not have the Constitutional and legal authority to make law himself.
Like this:
When Congress repeatedly declined to pass the DREAM Act, which would have offered citizenship to children whose parents brought them to the United States illegally, the president used his executive authority to offer "deferred action" on their deportation proceedings.
"Executive authority" he does not legally possess.
But, as his racist supporters have concluded, "in for a penny, in for a Viscera":
Bloomberg reports the president is being urged by the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group, the AFL-CIO, and other immigrant advocates, to extend the "deferred action" offered two years ago to those who would have qualified for the "pathway to citizenship" created in the Senate's immigration reform bill passed last year.
The Senate proposal would have covered people who have been in the United States since 2011 and don’t have serious criminal records, which would represent about two-thirds of all undocumented immigrants, Bloomberg adds.
"These are people that we know are going to eventually be legalized by Congress," Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy for the liberal Center for American Progress, told the news service.
Doesn't matter what the Senate proposal would have covered, Fitzy; it died in the House, and thus never legally became law. Too bad for you. Better luck next time, as you seem to think you'll enjoy. That doesn't legally entitle your demigod to wave his scepter and take cuts cross the "eventually bridge" to where you want to go policy-wise.
But O will do so anyway. Because that's the end that will justify any and all means of its attainment.
There's a reason why they say "the law is an ass".
This is the best argument for Congress using its constitutional purse string powers in Mortal Kombat mode, as in selectively zeroing out funding for policy areas Barack Obama favors. He'd just steal the funds illegally from areas he doesn't, but it would flush his lawlessness more and more out into the open, and then the American people could decide for themselves if this was really what they twice voted for. And their answer would probably be (wait for it...) "Yes! It! Is!"
Regardless, from now on, it'll be Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador that determine who wins U.S. elections. "Ariba la raza!" and all that.
Amazing how similar that sounds to...."Allahu Akbar!," huh?
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