'Balance of powers' at stake in amnesty fight

Immigration expert says result will be whether president can 'rule by decree'

Bob Unruh WND February 6, 2015

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The current fight in American politics, and its courts, over Barack Obama’s memo-driven amnesty plan for millions of illegal aliens already in the country ultimately will mean much more than whether they are given legal status.

And whether American taxpayers will ante up for benefits for them.

And whether more aliens sneak across the American border, possibly carrying untreated diseases, because of the attraction of such amnesty.

Or even whether those illegals eventually will be given the vote and throw their support behind their Democrat patrons and put that party in long-term control of America.

The fight will determine whether the United States can be run by a president and his decrees, or by a chief elected official who enforces the laws Congress writes.

That’s according to Mark Krikorian, chief of the Center for Immigration Studies, which watches the immigration situation.

“If I were a Republican politician, I wouldn’t even be arguing this on the basis of immigration,” he told WND in a Friday interview. “I would be talking about this as just the latest and most egregious example of a president’s rule by decree.”

He said the coming dispute, which very well may extend into the 2016 presidential election or beyond, is going to decide “the balance of powers, whether Congress actually makes law or is an advisory body like the U.N. General Assembly, which is how Obama sees it.”

Obama already has challenged America’s laws a multitude of times, simply issuing orders to make changes to the Obamacare law, and on a variety of other issues, all without the benefit of a decision by Congress, which originally wrote the laws.

The fight over amnesty is one of two focal points – the other is Obamacare – of a letter-writing campaign to encourage GOP members of the U.S. House to replace Speaker John Boehner.

The “Dump Boehner Now” campaign allows voters to reach every single Republican House member with hard-copy letters asking them to reconsider their choice as speaker. The letter says House members had the chance to stop Obamacare and amnesty, but Boehner failed to take advantage.

Joseph Farah, WND founder and campaign organizer, set up the letters campaign. He said the opposition to Boehner is based on the Obamacare and amnesty program that voters rejected in the 2014 midterm elections.

The letter explains to members of the U.S. House that two issues have “prompted Americans to turn in droves to the Republican Party in November 2014 – Barack Obama’s blatantly unconstitutional executive action to provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and the deliberately deceptive restructuring of America’s health-care system through Obamacare, which threatens to unravel the greatest health delivery system in the world.”

Pointing out that Republicans before the election “solemnly vowed to STOP this lame-duck president,” the letter states: “Now you have the power, right and duty to stop him.

“But it won’t happen with John Boehner leading you. You know this to be true. The trillion-dollar budget deal is just the latest proof that Boehner is not capable of leading the House to victory during this critical period.”

It’s because during the lame-duck Congress, Boehner agreed to Obama’s plan to continue funding for Obamacare and amnesty into 2015.

The amnesty dispute is heating up just now because there are two lawsuits that seek to bring an immediate halt to Obama’s plans.

MSNBC did a report earlier this week speculating on whether a judge in Texas hearing a lawsuit by 26 states against the amnesty plan will be willing to halt Washington’s strategy with a preliminary injunction.

MSNBC calls U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen “a critic of the Obama administration’s immigration policies.”

And the report quotes Marshall Fitz of the far-left Center for American Progress saying, “We all think the judge is going to rule in favor of the plaintiffs here. That much is almost assumed at this point.”

Worried MSNBC, “If Hanen decides against the Obama administration, he could block the implementation of the executive measures, which are scheduled to kick in Feb. 18. If that were to happen, the Department of Justice would almost certainly appeal the decision, which would then go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – yet another conservative-leaning court.”

The fact that more than half the states are participating in the case has alarmed amnesty supporters, but they still hope more and more illegals come out of the shadows and claim a place at the head of the line of those awaiting official recognition in the U.S., or at least it appears that way.

Karen Tumlin of the National Immigration Law Center told MSNBC, “People have been waiting so long for a chance to come forward and be able to work with authorization and not be looking over their shoulder all day long. We’re really trying to send the message that this should be business as usual.”

But there’s another case, too, which already is on a fast track before an appellate court after an Obama-appointed judge rejected it at the district level.

It was filed by attorney Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, on behalf of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County.

Klayman told WND on Friday he’s waiting now for the government to respond to the appellate court.

“We want the D.C. court to enter a preliminary injunction, stopping everything in its tracks,” he said. “We’re confident that they will agree with us.”

The impact of a district judge in Texas stopping Obama would have an impact on the appellate judges, he noted.

Krikorian said an injunction now would be the best result, since it would stop progress on the president’s memos and preserve the status quo as a final resolution is argued.

Applications for portions of Obama’s amnesty, he noted, are to be taking place starting Feb. 18.

He said the politics are interesting, because House Republicans know they should address the issue, but are reluctant to take steps that could rile some factions across the U.S.

A court order would solve the problem, but also would preserve it as an issue that would continue throughout 2015, and undoubtedly still be a headline maker during the 2016 president runoff.

He noted House Republicans, under Boehner, also have said they are going to take court action, but haven’t yet.

The fight is over more than amnesty, he repeated.

“This would be a fight over whether the next president should have the right to rule by degree,” he said. “I can see the bumper sticker: ‘Hillary 2016. We want her to rule by decree.’”

The letter campaign to Congress already has generated more than 575,000 letters.

Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation told WND why it’s important.

In the Washington Times, he said, “A month after its incredible victory, the GOP squandered its mandate, surrendering to the Democrats. The GOP-led House of Representatives did not proclaim its mandate and hold off on major decisions until the Republican majority in the Senate was sworn in. No, they went to the GOP position of preemptive surrender and gave President Obama and the Democrats almost everything they wanted.

“Despite the pleas and demands from the base, the GOP did nothing to stop Mr. Obama’s executive amnesty. They even rewarded left-wing billionaires who had spent millions to keep the Democrats in power by extending so-called ‘Green Energy’ subsidies,” he wrote. “The architect of the Republican surrender was House Speaker John Boehner.