Cantor’s defeat and the push for amnesty

Art credit: Oneoldvet.com

Lots of pundits have been weighing in on the fallout from Eric Cantor’s stunning defeat in last Tuesday’s primary to Dave Brat. Thomas Sowell has this perspective on the GOP elite’s position on amnesty “immigration reform”:

Apparently the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives -- which is to say, House Speaker John Boehner and [soon to be former] Majority Leader Eric Cantor -- thinks that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it "immigration reform" and toss in some fig-leaf requirements before the amnesty kicks in.

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed almost entirely in terms of what can be done to help those who have broken the law. Some want to help a little and some want to help a lot. But amnesty lite is still amnesty.

Some people seem to think that amnesty is not amnesty if you throw in requirements for citizenship. Amnesty is not some esoteric concept. It means that you are not going to be punished for breaking the law -- and that simply brings laws into contempt. Denying citizenship is not a punishment because crossing the border illegally does not entitle you to citizenship. Providing a legal status short of citizenship is not punishment either.

There is no requirement for either amnesty or for citizenship that President Obama cannot ignore or dilute unilaterally, as he has ignored or diluted existing immigration laws, as well as other laws. Barack Obama is the biggest reason to pass no immigration "reform" laws until after he is gone.

It doesn't matter what immigration policies you believe in if you don't control your borders -- and the vast numbers of minors flooding across our borders today show that the Obama administration has no intention of controlling the borders. They are more concerned with controlling the border guards and ordering them not to take pictures that show the public what is happening.

If you are serious about controlling the borders, then you pass laws to control the borders first. Some years later, after you can see whether the border has been controlled or not -- you can start discussing what our national immigration laws should be.

Otherwise, "comprehensive" immigration reform means granting some form of amnesty up front and promising to control the border later. How many more times are we going to fall for that bait and switch fraud?

Read the rest here. 

Steven Hayward at Power Line speculated on the possibility of President Obama issuing executive pardons to ALL illegal immigrants. After the mid-terms, of course.

Let’s look down the road a bit from here.  We know that President Obama is enamored of executive power.  He said on climate change that he wouldn’t wait on Congress, and we saw last week his bold use of the Clean Air Act to impose a regulatory scheme that Congress would never pass.  He’s said much the same thing about immigration.  So what might he do?

How about this: after the election next fall, especially if the GOP takes the Senate and with an eye to the 2016 election prospects for Democrats, Obama might well decide to use his pardon power to grant a blanket pardon to all illegal aliens presently in the United States.  This would not, strictly speaking, be a legal abuse; the president’s pardon power is unconditional in the Constitution.  But you can imagine the firestorm it would generate.

. . .  I think the odds of a blanket amnesty-by-pardon are much better than people think. Some enterprising reporter ought to ask about this at a White House press conference some time soon.

But yesterday, a caller to Rush Limbaugh raised an interesting legal point:

CALLER: I just want to point out a problem with [Steven Hayward’s] pardon theory.. . . The theory is you can be pardoned for prior actions and you can't be punished for them. But assuming that you're still in the United States and you still don't have a legal right to be here, you're immediately as guilty after the pardon as you are before the pardon.

RUSH: I don't think so.

CALLER: It doesn't give you a status to stay in the United States.

RUSH: Well, Mr. Hayward thinks it does. By the way, you're the first guy who said you can't do it. I've run it by a lot of people. Yeah, there's no constitutional prohibition against something like that because --

CALLER: Well, you can, if they were not in the United States and you pardoned them and they didn't come back illegally, they would be free. But assuming they're still in the United States and they're still here illegally, they're immediately guilty for actions that happen after the pardon.

RUSH: You can pardon somebody for all future.

CALLER: Actually, I don't think that's true. I don't think you can immunize --

RUSH: Well, even if you can't, by pardoning the fact that they are here illegally, the next day they don't start being illegal all over again, it's been pardoned. You're thinking they can only be pardoned up to that day. Right?

CALLER: Right. You can be pardoned up to that day, but if you don't have a legal right to be inside in the United States, you're not a citizen --

RUSH: Well, then how did Bill Clinton pardon Marc Rich and then say, and, by the way, you can never come back to this country?

CALLER: Well, what he said is Marc Rich is pardoned for these acts which have happened before.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: If you violate the law after you've been pardoned, you're not immune. You're subject again for the acts that occurred after the pardon.

The rest of Rush’s segment is here. 

Here's the bottom line from Steven Hayward for all of us, as we head into the mid-terms:

Therefore, a modest suggestion: every GOP candidate—especially for the Senate—should force Democratic candidates on the record before the campaign on the question of how they would respond if President Obama uses his pardon power to grant amnesty to every illegal alien currently in the country.  Get them on record now, ahead of the election.

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