Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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 Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Obama is the master of the symbolic. He can do very little and make a very big deal out of it.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/11/obama_s_immigration_plan_the_constitution_allows_him_to_set_deportation.html
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Congress has given nearly full legal rights to legal immigrants and passed tough laws to keep everyone else out—while appropriating far too little money to enforce them. This throws to the executive the task of deciding whom to enforce the laws against. Because Congress appropriates only enough money to deport 400,000 people per year out of 11 million, the president by necessity must pick and choose whom to deport. It’s no surprise that for decades every president has deported mainly criminals while leaving most everyone else alone.
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Nor does the government put much pressure on employers. In 2012, immigration authorities fined only 495 employers for illegally hiring undocumented aliens; the aggregate fines amounted only to $12.5 million, a pittance when you consider that 8 million unauthorized migrants are employed. (Republicans might be interested to know that zero employers were fined in 2006 and two employers were fined in 2007, under the Bush administration.)
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Republicans’ claim that the president is shredding the Constitution sounds so odd to people knowledgeable about immigration law. He’s just doing what countless Congresses have wanted him to do, and have effectively forced him to do, so that Congress itself could avoid charges that it has created a two-tier system of citizenship where the bottom tier is allowed to stay in this country and work, but is not allowed to vote, to benefit from welfare programs, to travel freely, or to enjoy the full protection of workplace laws. |
I've edited Posner to cut the parts with which I disagree. Eric Posner is an elite who benefits from the "guest-worker caste system," so its difficult to read him say its good for Americans at large. It seems like something he should have to at least demonstrate.
Nonetheless, his constitutional assertions are sound. Obama must enforce a law which is difficult to enforce, and he must do so with too little money. The rest is political show. Try not to pay the hype much mind. |
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