But isn't that the point of drawing a line — so it won't be crossed? You have to portray the crossing as a dramatic and momentous step or the drawing of a line is not a deterrent. That's why that line-drawing Obama did over Syria was bad: The line was crossed and nothing happened. And that's why it works for the NYT editors (at the first link) to encourage Obama to cross the line:
His power to conduct immigration policy is vast. Congress has given the president broad flexibility and discretion to enforce immigration law. It has also given him the resources to deport about 350,000 to 400,000 people a year, as Mr. Obama has done, relentlessly. It could have given him billions more to deport everyone, but it has not.The message (from the NYT) is: Go ahead and cross that line and you'll see. It will be just fine.
For Mr. Obama to use the tools at hand to focus on high-priority targets — felons, violent criminals, public-safety and national-security threats — and to let many others alone would be a rational and entirely lawful exercise of discretion....
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63 comments:
I'm sure there will be the inevitable nyt pieces during the next republican presidents term assuring them that it's ok to ignore the law as written.
The New York Times cares for neither the causes of mass emigration nor the displacement of native Americans. They seem quite enthusiastic to violate civil rights and sponsor general corruption. Of course, they also want Americans to remain blind and stupid to the consequences of their unfit behaviors.
Think of the American children... before birth, after birth, and decomposing in the nation's toilets.
As for Obama's leverage, redistributive change, or guardianship, is a double-edged sword. Children of the world, rebel!
The mere possibility of Mr. Obama’s [acting] outside the law is already making Republicans clutch at their chests and cry out: [Don't do that. It's against the law.]
I notice the NYT didn't mention the right-winger declaration of Ceasarism was in an editorial in the NYT.
"I'm sure there will be the inevitable nyt pieces during the next republican presidents term assuring them that it's ok to ignore the law as written."
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
A general amnesty was tried before and failed, miserably. The territorial integrity of America was not preserved. The civil rights of Americans were not protected. The causes of mass emigration from third and second world countries, but especially across the border, were not addressed. Both business and democrat interests convulsed at the mere suggestion that they would enjoy diminished leverage, and that fellow Americans may finally realize the consequences of their "choices".
Not enough money? Since when is the federal government operating with a budget? I thought the deficit was the result of outlays beyond receipts, not budgetary limitations.
"It could have given him billions more to deport everyone, but it has not." Change the subject a bit (see Halbig vs, Sebelius) : "Congress could have included subsidies for federal exchanges, but it did not." Suddenly congressional intent might be important to the NYT?
Obama's deportation statistics are bogus. They count turn-aways (people caught at the border and refused entry) as "deportations," which no administration has done before.
He is using the vast majority of the money allocated to "process," i.e. house, feed, temporary papers and legal advice, etc., the "immigrants," not to deport anybody.
Obama has actually deported fewer people than previous presidents.
The numbers the NYT refers to have been cooked by Obama by including people caught at the border [and simply turned back] with the deportation statistics.
Prior admins did not include those turnbacks as deportations. This is a well known fact Professor- I am surprised you don't know of it.
Hagar beat me to it.
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
The same answer I have for most of his excuses for not doing his job...bullshit.
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
8/10/14, 2:51 PM
That this a complete and utter lie. Their answer to everything is "we.need more money"; this federal government has more money anyway you measure it than any time before.
Lie lie lie. Then lie some more. And then the msm repeats the lie as if fact then rubes accept the lie.
Like most NYT editorials, this one is utterly predictable. I did find it interesting that they chose to - twice - describe Obama's action as "protecting" illegals. Protect from what? We should choose not to deport people in order to protect them from being deported? A bit circular.
Nothing as in airlifting unaccompanied minors to all 57 states?
What is the difference between "outside the law" and "illegal"? Another progressive euphemism, a bunch of words doing the job a single word could do.
"A general amnesty was tried before and failed, miserably."
Actually, it was OK but the second act, closing the border, was never tried. If we really closed the border, I would be OK with an amnesty for law abiding long term residents but that won;t happen. The left wants a new passive electorate and the (corporate) right wants cheap labor.
It amazes me that the blacks still can't see this as a threat.
I think they're confused between drawing a line and closing the barn doors after the horse has already escaped.
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
My answer would be "let's see the proof of that".
350, 000 deportations saved or created...
What we haven't tried is a massive national deportation effort that puts all of the resources of the government to work at removing the border jumpers. It would be very easy to coordinate this with efforts by the states to do the same. Self-styled "sanctuary cities" should be punished.
I suspect we are spending incredible amounts of money feeding, housing, educating and providing medical care for these people. It needs to stop. They can go back to their own fucked-up countries and apply for a visa like everyone else.
If we absolutely need the labor, we can go for a guest worker program.
the resources to deport about 350,000 to 400,000 people a year, as Mr. Obama has done, relentlessly
This is the big lie.
What they have done is cut way back on the deportations from the interior and start counting (which was never done) the the border crosser returns.
It is not about "closing the border."
To stop the invasion of "illegals" we need to enforce the laws against "aiding and abetting" by employing these "undocumented Democrats."
No jobs, no sense in going here.
It is not complicated.
And - No citizenship, no papers and no benefits of any kind. Just immediate deportation if found on the premises.
Again, it is not complicated.
"What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?"
As T Rellis points out, these are lies. Putting people on a bus to Juarez is deporting them. Flying people to Alaska is not deporting them.
But putting that to one side, what is it exactly that Obama is supposedly going to "protect" these criminals from? Each other? No, what Obama plans to protect millions of criminals from is the laws he swore to enforce.
"I'm sure there will be the inevitable nyt pieces during the next republican presidents term assuring them that it's ok to ignore the law as written."
A "next republican president" is precisely what the NYT's editors hope to avoid.
"Obama's deportation statistics are bogus. They count turn-aways (people caught at the border and refused entry) as "deportations," which no administration has done before."
As when this administration started counting jobs "saved" by the stimulus. It's deception.
What I still don't understand is why this has become an issue this year. Its not like anything has changed in the fundamentals for the last few decades. It doesn't even seem like there is much political upside here for anyone, excepty maybe, possibly in some fairly distant future.
And as for the H1b loosening and etc., frankly I don't see why any major corporation would get too exercised either. The numbers are trivial and the net cost reduction per FTE head, counting productivity offsets, is also IMHO quite marginal.
Why? Why now? Nobody has an answer.
Michael K:
America is sufficiently large, economically, and geographically, to absorb the illegal aliens in our midst. That is assuming that they will assimilate and are not here to change the economic, cultural, constitutional, and moral character of our nation. However, the issues of granting amnesty and mitigating corruption are not separable. The lesson we learned with Reagan's effort is that not all of the domestic and foreign interests are participating in good faith. So, the potentially positive influence of immigration, was sabotaged by ignoring the foreign causes and domestic consequences. And now history repeats itself by creating a [humanitarian] crisis through incentive. The precedent was ignored and the outcome was predictable.
That said, I will further emphasize the effect of immigration obfuscating the consequences of unfit behaviors. While I welcome immigration below the rate of assimilation, I cannot help but be concerned about the corruption of Americans and aliens alike. Perhaps if pro-immigration interests would explain the motives and consequences of their policies, then that would mitigate the progressive risk, both in America and the aliens' homelands.
The NYT is so full of euphemism it is tough to cut through it all:
"Sometime in late summer, if predictions are right, President Obama will use his executive authority to protect many unauthorized immigrants from deportation."
There is no popular support for protecting illegal immigrants from the law and no legal justification for exempting them from the law. So why do it unless the motive is the creation of millions of insta-Democrats? Why exactly should the Republicans go along with this?
@ Ann "What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?"
Well, first of all, what are the facts? Non-enforcement has been an issue for a decade or more. What is different now? Are the two parties (or the big money that controls both parties) actually in collusion not to enforce our laws because (fill in the blank)?
"What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?"
Althouse is either disingenuous or terminally naive. This is the exact situation we've had since the last amnesty. The executive doesn't deport every illegal. Thats executive discretion. And actually Obama has even stopped deporting criminal illegals. But that is a political question to be resolved at the ballot box.
The problem is granting illegal aliens legal status. How can a decision to not deport someone also give that person legal status? Giving legal status, work permit and require states to issue drivers license should require legislation.
Its people like Althouse, who should be held to account for their enabling of this destruction of separation of powers. Politicians, journalists, intellectuals, lawyers, and constitutional law professors should be in the forefront of stopping this. But no..Althouse would rather play coy games. Shame on you Althouse.
In addition to the phony deportation statistics, the Obama Administration has distorted the whole "prosecutorial discretion" thing beyond all recognition. Suppose a DA or States Attorney announced that he didn't have the resources to prosecute all rape cases so from now on a rapist wouldn't be prosecuted unless he committed at least 3 rapes. De facto amnesty for non-serial rapists. You wouldn't accept that. The DA would be fired. Obama and his allies in some state and local governments are trying to grant de facto amnesty to illegal immigrants. Resource shortages are just an excuse.
As several commenters have already pointed out, it seems a touch odd for the NYT to be defending the idea that the Pres. should be "protecting" people from the law.
"Michael K:
America is sufficiently large, economically, and geographically, to absorb the illegal aliens in our midst. That is assuming that they will assimilate and are not here to change the economic, cultural, constitutional, and moral character of our nation. However, the issues of granting amnesty and mitigating corruption are not separable. The lesson we learned with Reagan's effort is that not all of the domestic and foreign interests are participating in good faith."
This seems to be directed at me so I will respond. The previous amnesty was permitted with the assumption that the promise to end further illegal immigration would be kept. I know a fair number of people who received citizenship under amnesty.
The promise was not kept. The more recent immigrants are getting lower and lower on the education and intelligence scale. I spent ten years reviewing workers comp claims. I can see what is happening. We are seeing a lot of these people who are working and filing claims, so they must be in the formal economy, who claim "a second grade education in Mexico" and who are illiterate in Spanish, let alone English. I see no way they will ever assimilate.
I also see many who plan to save as much money as they can and go back to Mexico when they have enough or are unable to do manual labor.
This is not a "path to citizenship." Already, Mexico has a huge share of its economy from remittances from illegal residents of the US. It is even reported that half of Mexico's income is remittances
Remittances — transfers of money between individuals in different locations — make up the second-largest contribution to Mexico's foreign income, trailing only the oil industry, according to research conducted by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, a multinational Spanish banking group.
In 2013, remittances received by Mexican residents totaled about $21.6 billion, up about 15 percent from a decade ago, according to the Banco de Mexico, Mexico's central bank. Experts estimate this industry will continue to grow an additional five to six percent in 2014.
Aleles noted there's a misguided preconception that these individuals will start returning to Mexico once they've accumulated enough resources.
“That just doesn't happen,” he explained. “A lot of people come here with the idea of returning home one day, but they instead become indoctrinated in the U.S. economy.”“This is no different in Texas than it is in California or other states with large immigrant populations,” Aleles added.
I think that is the old group and doubt it will continue. I know quite a few who plan to retire in Mexico although the drug wars may be deterring many.
Every word in that op-ed is a lie, including "and" and "the."
Maybe there would be more money if we didn't send them to Hawaii and Alaska? How much is being spent on keeping Congress and the press out?
That includes people who fly here, get surgeries and disappear or flush their documents down the blue water.
I also think no more dual citizenship.
First, we must have all public officials strictly obey the "shall not be infringed" clause of the Second Amendment. An alert and fully armed citizenry will take care of the rest---As in 1775.
I don't believe that the NYT is calling for quantitatively unlimited immigration, nor do they honestly propose that at the margin, when one last legal spot for immigration is open, the country would be better off letting in an illiterate Salvadoran peasant than letting in a Malaysian engineer. Perhaps they are hones enough to say that the best thing for the country would be letting in one more presumptive democratic voter, but failing that, they are just hypocrites.
"What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?"
The answer is that the enforcement effort should be focused on "e-verify". Not only because no one in business should be forced to break the law by looking the other way while hiring illegals, just to commpete; and second because if we make it impossible for anyone here illegally to make a living, they will leave (and many other will not come).
This strategy will work so well that the left has already developed scare tactics to undermine it: they call it "self-deportation".
Any real free market capitalist or libertarian would call it people acting in line with their economic incentives.
AJ Lynch says:
Prior admins did not include those turnbacks as deportations. This is a well known fact Professor- I am surprised you don't know of it.
AJ: sometimes even the smartest people have willful blindness.
The Rubicon of Obama's lawlessness is so far back in the rear view mirror that you can't even see the bridge over it any more.
Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS, Libya, Illegals, economy, multiple scandals still dragging out, etc..
So maybe he will just declare himself king.
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; "
Yeats... maybe talking about Obama for all I know.
Prosecutorial discretion: choosing not to prosecute a single individual for violating the law.
Rewriting the law: refusing to enforce the law for anyone. Or "protecting people from the law".
Thanks, NYT, for establishing that the President can rewrite any law he wants, whenever he wants, in any way he wants,even though Congress has explicitly refused to rewrite the law that way.
We'll remeber that when there's a Republican President, and disputes about ObamaCare, capital gains taxes, unions, labor relations, business taxes, etc.
See, Ann, this is why you should never, ever, vote for a Democrat. All the "watchguards" who are supposed to keep the government from doing wrong roll over and play dead when it's a Democrat doing it.
Oh sigh.
Late Roman republic. Right down to the metaphors.
That 350K -450K figure is bogus. They changed the rules to include people refused admittance in the first place, so every car they turn back before it even enters the US at San Ysidro, for instance, counts as a deportation.
Deportations of actual illegal immigrants actually inside the country are way down.
Ann Althouse said:
"What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?"
Ann, you have been rebutted. What say you?
The New York Times thinks all lines are crooked, because it is.
Clyde@6:33 wins the thread!
Its stunning that the Obama administration and its mouth pieces lie so easily now, without any fear of being called on it.
He has not deported some record number. He has changed how the numbers are reported. Instead of jobs created, for example, its now saved or created. The numbers are all the same, but under Obama, there is new spin.
Rest assured illegals, Obama doesn't deport more than his predecessors.
The NYT hasn't had this much fun since Stalin was in power.
The thing about crossing the Rubicon is: even though Caesar won, it was the end of the Republic. Once he had definitively established that he was not willing to obey the law, there was nothing left.
Passing major laws in open defiance of Congress and the normal functioning of the state is actually a really good comparison with Caesar. That's what his argument with the Senate was all about!
If your goal is to avoid a Rubicon, it's not exactly reassuring to argue that the First Triumvirate is really the more apt comparison.
"He has done nothing yet, but right-wingers have pre-emptively declared - "
Dumbass. He CAUSED the current illegal immigration crisis by telling everyone south of the border that he would not enforce the law.
And please, no spin about Obama "protecting" anyone while he lets Iraqi's get slaugtered by ISIS. You should have some fricken shame.
I wonder how much "executive discretion" the NYT would be willing to defend if this were a Republican deciding how to enforce the tax code.
The president has to act with only the amount of discretion granted by Congress when it passes the enabling legislation. This isn't a blanket authorization to create his own law. Even if you favor his policies (which presumably the NYT does) you have to recognize this.
Most likely Obama is going to continue pushing the line, daring the GOP to impeach, and impeachment will be just unpopular enough that they won't take the bait. It'll continue like this for another couple years when he leaves office after having one of the most abysmal second terms in modern history. This one may be second only to Nixon's.
AA: What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone...
Others have addressed the lie of "aggressive deportation", but the apparatchiks have been peddling variants of the "Obama the deporter" b.s. for a while now. Let us move on to admire the dishonesty of now implying that the 3+ billion dollars requested was going to be used to expedite deportations.
Professor, as someone who likes analyzing political rhetoric, you might enjoy examining the MSM writing on immigration per se. (I mean, not just the enveloping party-political stuff.) True, most "reporting" on the subject is just publishing the "stale trope" press releases of open-borders lobbyists, but the shameless emotionalism, balls-to-the-wall Big Lie maneuvers, and sheer babbling crazy talk (see, e.g., the penultimate paragraph of the linked article) in the op-eds would entertain any student of rhetoric.
Interestingly, if comments are any indication, it seems to be the one topic where the majority of reliably ultra-liberal, rethuglican-hatin' readers adamantly refuse to buy what the NYT, WaPo, etc. keep trying to sell.
"Michael K said...
It amazes me that the blacks still can't see this as a threat."
A threta to what? Jobs?
Blacks see Democrats as "Free shit."
More illegals, more future Democratic votes, more future Democrats, more free shit.
Still amazed?
I'm amazed that rank and file union members don't see the threat as their unions throw them under the bus.
I'm just not sure why Democrats think this immigration issue is so good for them. Perhaps they think strongly Democratic voters will support them even if they do a mass amnesty, or will have their hearts moved by the plight of the children to the point they'll think not deporting them is a good thing.
But this issue seems to be popular with Democratic politicians, people in the press, a portion of upper middle class white voters, and some hispanic voters. The vast swath of people have really torn feelings about illegal immigration, and this issue with the children on the borders looks so horrible.
It all just highlights how much Obama lets things get to a crisis point before dealing with them. Or before considering dealing with them. Pre-emptive actions and advanced planning are not his strong suit.
This is an interesting comment at the NTY:
Joanna Bay Area, California 21 hours ago
This editorial shows the perspective of the affluent and cosseted liberal – someone who is well-meaning, well-educated, but has never actually lived in a poor and conflict-ridden country and therefore would have been able to observe first hand that non-white and non-English speaking people do, in fact, have agency.
This shock the mind, when they were taught that non-white and non-English speaking people merely react to US policy and, implicitly, cannot conduct themselves with integrity due to external factors.
Most illegals know that if their circumstances back home were extreme they could have applied for a refugee visa. But their situations were NOT extreme and they did not qualify for refugee status. Yet the US does not have a visa category specifically for people who are poor and want a better life for their kids. (If the US were to start issuing “poverty visas”, half the world’s population would qualify. And if half the world’s population were to move to the US, the first thing that would happen is a drop in wages that would make wages in Calcutta look princely.)
There is bigotry – a soft kind, but bigotry nonetheless – when liberals deny the humanity of illegal immigrants. They do that when they deny that non-white and non-English speaking people have agency.
=====
(from her avatar, she looks to be Asian. Perhaps that will give her more cred with some people)
Ann Althouse said...
"I'm sure there will be the inevitable nyt pieces during the next republican presidents term assuring them that it's ok to ignore the law as written."
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
And therein lies the natural advantage a liberal has in arguments with conservatives--it is far easier to simply make things up than to marshal facts showing they are incorrect.
So how would I respond to the NYT assertion? I would not, that's how. The NYT has not provided facts in support of its assertion and therefore there is nothing to reply to.
There was an article maybe a week or so ago at the Volokh Conspiracy at the WaPo that pointed out that the President has a lot more discretion under immigration law than he does under the ACA/ObamaCare. Unfortunately, this appears to be an area where he is more just being a bad President, than one doing illegal acts.
I think that we need the President to have the ability to waive immigration requirements for humanitarian reasons. I don't think that we want to force Administrations to send back people who truly face death upon their return, esp. if the danger to their lives is due to their religion, etc. So, we give Presidents a lot of flexibility in dealing with immigration, assuming good faith on their part. And, that, of course, is probably the problem here - the assumption of good faith. But, that still means that he probably has the legal power to do whatever he is going to do, without violating the Constitution, separation-of-powers, etc.
Ann Althouse said...
What's your answer to the point that he hasn't be allocated enough money to deport everyone and that he is using the money that he has been allocated to deport the most dangerous people and he's done that aggressively?
1. He hasn't "done that aggresively," as usual we've got a case of jukin' the stats. The current Admin is counting people turned back in close proximity to the border as deportations when earlier Admins did not, thus the much-higher number of deportations now reported.
2. Notwithstanding 1., this Admin through its words and actions has effectively rolled out the red carpet for illegal immigrants, contributing to the increase in the number coming in. Even if you're deporting x% more, if your policies are causing an increase of 3x% you're not making progress.
3. Are you actually taking the arguement that "we dont' have enough $ to solve the problem completely, so it's ok to stretch the concept of enforcement discretion beyond recongition" seriously? Would you take that argument seriously if applied to any other topic?
4. No one is arguing against prioritizing deportations (most dangerous first) so this is yet another strawman. With illegal immigration, of course, you don't really know who has come in until they do something here in the States, so it's a little silly to claim that you only need to go after the bad people who get in when you can't know who among the crowd you're letting in is bad until they do, you know, bad things! That's one of the good arguments for enforcing the border first, so that you can at least find out who is coming in and make a valid, legal determination of whether they should be allowed in to begin with. Before they prove themselves to be dangerous people by committing crimes here, I mean.
5. If funds were restricted to border enforcement and increased deportations you can bet the Repubs. would pass spending bills in a second. Even the moderate Repubs would do so now, the election cycle being what it is. The problem is 2-fold: no one trusts this Admin to spend the funds in this way (for good reason) and the Dems won't allow a spending bill that just does this. So let's not put too much stock in the whine that this Admin would do the right thing if only they had the $. Am I misremembering things or did the Admin's party hold both houses of Congress as well as the White House for at least, what, two years? What crackdown on illegal immmigration (or really immigration policy of any kind) passed then, again?
For what it's worth I shall try to remember to use the euphemism "protect from the law" in the future. Not "apply normal unbiased prosecutorial discretion," mind you, but protect from the law.
I could use some protection from some tax laws, now that I think about it...
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