WILL JUSTICES ONCE AGAIN GO ROGUE?

Since it’s something that happens so infrequently, it easy to remember that the last time we heard Barry tell the truth was November of last year.  The occasion was a speech that he gave at a Chicago community center.  Now granted it was more than likely that this rather uncharacteristic bout of honesty occurred completely by accident but, nonetheless, it happened.  But what likely prompted this rather unusual exercise in truth-telling to occur in the first place was the fact that hecklers shouted at him for not doing enough, in their view, to stop deportations.

And as unaccustomed as Barry is to telling the truth, it was likely the fact that he was so determined in his attempt to defend his policy that may have, ultimately, contributed to Barry’s little slip up.  He said, "I understand you may disagree. But we've got to be able to talk honestly about these issues. All right?"  He then went on to say, "Now, you're absolutely right that there have been significant numbers of deportations. That's true."  And he went on to add, "But what you're not paying attention to is the fact that I just took action to change the law."

Yes, my friends, Barry did put it in the first-person singular: 'I just took action to change the law."  But what law, exactly, was it that Barry take it upon himself to change?  Well, our less-then-stellar Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh (Jay) Johnson managed to shed some light on that when he announced that DHS was expanding its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and was essentially morphing it into a new program which was going to be called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents.

Now while the former program granted "lawful presence," work authorization and the ability to get Social Security Numbers to illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors, this so-called new and improved version of the program would go one to grant these very same things to illegal immigrants who were the parents of citizens or legal permanent residents. And it was estimated that over 4 million illegal immigrants would be eligible for this new and improved DAPA. 

However, what proved to be the flies in Barry’s immigration ointment, so to speak, were the twenty-six states, including Texas, who decided to sue in their effort to prevent our ‘Dear Beloved Leader’ from unilaterally making this change in the law.  But ‘Team Obama’ argued in federal court, that this policy, which Barry himself had described as being a "change" in the law, was in fact nothing more than an exercise of prosecutorial discretion well within the purview of Barry.  But sadly for ‘Team Obama’ the judge wasn’t buying what it was that they were selling.

Because by definition an act of prosecutorial discretion is discrete and finite: A prosecutor decides not to press charges against a person for a particular offense that has already been committed. The prosecutor does not say: I hereby license you to break that law with impunity in the future.  So what was being attempted here by Barry and his team, doesn’t quite fit within the parameters, by any stretch of the imagination, and is yet another example of how Barry continues to assume that the rules simply do not apply to him.

And it was in a brilliant opinion published back in February that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen explained that "prosecutorial discretion" did not properly describe what ‘Team Barry’ was trying to accomplish with DAPA.  The judge said, "Instead of merely refusing to enforce the INA's removal laws against an individual, the DHS has enacted a wide-reaching program that awards legal presence, to individuals Congress has deemed deportable or removable, as well as the ability to obtain Social Security numbers, work authorization permits, and the ability to travel."

He went on to say, "Absent DAPA, these individuals would not receive these benefits."  He added, "Exercising prosecutorial discretion and/or refusing to enforce the law does not entail bestowing benefits."   He said, "Non-enforcement is just that — not enforcing the law. Non-enforcement does not entail refusing to remove these individuals as required by the law and then providing three years of immunity from that law, legal presence status, plus any benefits that may accompany legal presence under current regulations."

Judge Hanen pointed out, in referring to Barry's speech in Chicago, that it was Barry himself who had actually taken credit for changing the law.  He said, "The government must concede that there is no specific law or statute that authorizes DAPA."  He went on to say "In fact, the president announced it was the failure of Congress to pass such a law that prompted him (through his delegate, Secretary Johnson) to 'change the law.'"  And then added, "The DHS secretary is not just rewriting the laws; he is creating them from scratch."

And so it was then that it was just this week that the majority of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit echoed Judge Hanen's very sound reasoning and upheld the injunction he imposed on Barry's "change" of law.  Of course it was immediately announced that ‘Team Obama’ would an appeal to the Supreme Court.  Now remember, this year it was five members of the Supreme Court who decided that there is a constitutional right for two people of the same sex to marry and, thus, that children have no right to a mother (or a father).

And last week the Supreme Court decided that it would take up the case the Little Sisters of the Poor who are fighting against the overreach of Barry’s administration. In this case, five justices could very well decide whether the administration can force Catholic nuns, and other Christians, to cooperate in its plan to deliver abortion-inducing drugs and devices through employer-based health care plans.  In this new case, again it could be five justices who may well get to decide if one man can change this nation's immigration laws.  Sadly, I’m not too confident about our odds.