Anybody Ever Heard Of Checks, Balances?

PRESIDENT CLINTON famously redefined the word “is.” President Obama should be remembered for the word “isn’t.”

His latest directive to the Department of Homeland Security on immigration policy isn’t constitutional. The directive isn’t an executive order, even though it was originally presented as such. It isn’t a presidential memoranda. It isn’t a proclamation. …

So, what is it? Where does the president get the authority to bypass Congress, and re-write immigration policy? … Where in the Constitution does it say that if the president doesn’t get what he wants, he can simply ignore the rules and make up new ones?

When President Obama announced the change in policy, he said, “This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure.” Whatever a “stopgap measure is, it certainly isn’t in the Constitution.

To explain why the latest pronouncement by the president isn’t constitutional … there are three branches of the government. … The legislative branch writes the nation’s laws and is in charge of the budget. The executive branch signs the bills into law and is charged with upholding and enforcing the nation’s laws and foreign treaties. The judicial branch determines the constitutionality of the legislation, when needed.

This isn’t about whether Obama did this for political purposes, or needing to make exceptions to a dysfunctional immigration system. It isn’t an issue of racism vs. compassion. … What really is at stake is the fact that our commander-in-chief ignores the Constitution and rule of law when it suits him. It isn’t the first time, and it certainly isn’t the last time he will make an arbitrary policy directive.

What happens if President Obama finds the First Amendment inconvenient? How about the Second Amendment? The Fourth? What’s to stop him from taking “stopgap measures” on any other issue? Nothing.

If it isn’t Constitutional, then it’s totalitarian rule. It isn’t the end, but it’s the beginning of the end.

EDWARD GLENN

Albuquerque