On New Year’s Eve, the Obama administration published a 200-page proposed rule in the Federal Register. The proposed rule is another executive order, in plain violation of the immigration laws. Obama’s executive order would illegally ignore the immigration caps that are enshrined in law. Senator Jeff Sessions denounced Obama’s usurpation, which, interestingly, was covered by hardly any “mainstream” news sources.
Sessions wrote:
The President has announced another brazen, illegal executive action. … In a proposed federal rule published on New Year’s Eve, President Obama decreed that hundreds of thousands of additional foreign workers will be licensed to replace American workers at lower pay.Congress must act with urgency to stop him.The President’s nearly 200-page rule bypasses federal immigration caps, increasing significantly the number of foreign nationals authorized to work in the country above the limits set by Congress. These lower-paid foreign workers will be able to take jobs in technology firms, neighborhood pharmacies, energy companies, local schools, public administration, civil engineering, and innumerable other professions both sought and filled by millions of Americans. …The number of aliens authorized to work in the United States each year is limited by law, according to the number of foreign work visas and green cards that are statutorily available. Under this breathtaking executive action, those limits set by Congress are waived.
I got an A in Constitutional Law, but somehow I must have missed the provision that gives the President power to “waive” provisions of federal law.
Here is how the scheme works: under current law, there is a statutory cap on the number of aliens who can receive green cards based on sponsorship from their employers, and thus a cap on the number who can receive the all-purpose work authorization those green cards provide. Under this new rule, the administration can bypass those caps with two easy steps. First, it would simply approve as many aliens as it wishes to seek green cards in excess of the cap. Then, it would give those workers – and their spouses and children – a renewable all-purpose work permit while they wait for their green cards to become available, nullifying Americans’ statutory protections against job-threatening flows of excess foreign labor. Adding further to the pool of workers, it expands the number of H-1B visas exempt from the annual cap.Brazenly, the proposed rule would also result in the automatic renewal of work permits for aliens who, among other things, merely file applications to have their deportations cancelled or asylum granted. It is as if these policies were designed to create chaos and disorder.
Funny how many actions of the Obama administration seem to be designed to create chaos and disorder. Maybe he thinks that’s a good thing.
This lawless action comes at a time when immigration is already at an all-time high. The total foreign-born population is at record-breaking 42.4 million, having more than quadrupled since immigration caps were raised five decades ago. Excess labor supply has already helped drive down today’s median household income more than $4,000 beneath levels at the turn of the century.
But you already know that.
When the history of the Obama administration is written, it will be condemned, more than anything else, for its lawlessness. Its many policy failures and betrayals of the American people are important, individually. But the overarching theme of the Obama administration has been its contempt for the rule of law. President Obama, in seeking to govern illegally by executive decree, has taken us half-way down the path toward a tinpot dictatorship in the Mussolini/Peron/Chavez mold. This is unprecedented in American history, and the first task of Obama’s successor will be to restore the rule of law to the United States.
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