Obama’s Unilateral Amnesty Really Will Be Unprecedented – and Unconstitutional

Obama’s Unilateral Amnesty Really Will Be Unprecedented – and Unconstitutional

By Hans von Spakovskyon Wed, 19 Nov 2014

According to the Associated Press, as well as House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.,  President Barack Obama’s plan to provide executive amnesty to more than five million illegal immigrants is no different than unilateral actions that were taken by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

However, this claim plays a bit fast-and-loose with history and fails to explain the significant difference between Obama going against the will of Congress, which considered and rejected the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act on several occasions, including when both houses of Congress were controlled by the president’s party, and Reagan and Bush who made administrative corrections designed to carry out congressional intent.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization ….”  And it is the president’s constitutional duty, under Article II, Section 3, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed ….”

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), which provided a general amnesty to almost three million illegal immigrants.  According to the Associated Press, Reagan acted unilaterally when his Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner “announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by [IRCA] would get protection from deportation.”  In fact, in 1987 former Attorney General Ed Meese issued a memorandum allowing the INS to defer deportation where “compelling or humanitarian factors existed” for children of illegal immigrants who had been granted amnesty and, in essence, given green cards and put on a path towards being “naturalized” as citizens.  In announcing this policy, Reagan was not defying Congress, but rather carrying out the general intent of Congress which had just passed a blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.