High Court To Hear Amnesty Challenge

The Supreme Court has decided to hear 26 states' challenge to President Obama's unpopular and constitutionally dubious plan that amnesties up to 5.5 million illegal aliens and provides incentives for foreigners to have so-called anchor babies in order to gain legal immigrant status here. After the Obama administration lost twice in lower courts, the high court gave the administration a win Tuesday when it decided to review a November ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upholding Brownsville, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's order earlier last year halting implementation of Obama's executive amnesty. As attorney Gabriel Malor writes at The Federalist:

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"At the most basic level, this case is about stopping yet another President Obama end-run around Congress. In accordance with its constitutional authority, Congress has established an elaborate immigration scheme governing which aliens may enter the United States, how long they may stay, and which aliens must be removed. Obama and the Democrats do not like Congress' immigration scheme, but they lack the votes to change it."

The decision to take up the politically explosive issue sets the high court up for high drama in this election year in which illegal immigration, and immigration policies in general, figure prominently. The Supreme Court is expected to render its decision on the merits of the case by June. Led by Donald Trump, most Republican presidential candidates oppose amnesty in varying degrees while all Democrats favor it. After the court acted, Senate Democrats succeeded in blocking a common-sense measure that would have paused the resettling of refugees from terrorist-producing Syria and Iraq in the U.S. until the FBI could certify they didn't constitute a threat to the U.S. The vote Wednesday was 55 to 43, which fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed for the Senate to move forward. The House approved the legislation in November. The president vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Obsessed with his legacy, President Obama is determined to unravel America's immigration system in order to flood the country with desperately poor, illiterate peasants from the Third World, especially those from Mexico, who come to the U.S. and depress labor markets while they suck the nation's welfare state dry. Obama wants to do this in order to wash away the rule of law tainted as it is by Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, along with whatever stubborn residue of American Revolutionary enlightenment that remains deeply embedded within the tissues of our culture and free institutions.

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Obama: "Systematically" dismantling the nation's immigration enforcement system

Conservative champion Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) has previously accused President Obama of "systematically" dismantling the nation's immigration enforcement system. Obama's attacks on America's immigration laws, including his embrace of so-called sanctuary cities that unlawfully shield illegals from the law, are "undermining the very rule of law upon which our nation was founded and upon which its greatness depends." The litigation arises from Obama's post-2014 election maneuvering. Obama stuck his finger in voters' eyes and embarked on his massive Democrat-voter importation plan in late 2014 after his party's policies were dramatically repudiated by voters in congressional elections. Trotting out tired old mantras like "coming out of the shadows," the president said at the time:

"So we're going to offer the following deal: If you've been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens or illegal residents. If you register, pass a criminal background check and you're willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you'll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That's what this deal is."

Texas and 25 other states are suing to halt the amnesty. Obama's executive actions aim to shield from deportation illegal alien parents of U.S. citizens and children who were raised in this country, by way of his legally haphazard Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program and by expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DAPA institutionalizes "anchor babies," which are children born in the United States to a mother who is not legally present in the country. Under current law, the child is automatically a U.S. citizen who can eventually sponsor other family members as immigrants to the U.S., but that doesn't mean its parents get to stay in the U.S. in the meantime. DAPA lets the illegal alien parents obtain temporary lawful immigration status if their child is an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident (green card holder). "In other words, for the first time, the Obama administration brought the 'anchor baby' concept into practice in the United States," attorney Malor explains. The high court is also asking counsel in the case to address whether Obama's actions run afoul of a provision of the U.S. Constitution that requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." (The Heritage Foundation has a good primer on the Take Care Clause, also known as the Faithful Execution Clause.) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Obama went beyond his legitimate presidential powers and usurped the authority of Congress.

Obama's amnesty plan

"The court should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he cannot unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people's representatives," Paxton said. "President Obama is not a king, and impatient presidents don't get to change the law," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice. "This executive overreach is both unlawful and unconstitutional." On the left, Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, urged the court to let Obama's questionable executive fiats slide. "We believe the Supreme Court will use common sense to advance the common good. Justice is finally near." Progressives have long complained that the immigration system is broken, but they attach a special meaning to the word broken. They mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to lure every single prospective illegal alien available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation's largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America's borders altogether. Obama's amnesty plan is a step in that direction. Which is why the Left is praying the Supreme Court sides with Obama.

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