A few thoughts on reading the transcript of the President's immigration speech.

1. What, if anything, is really changing? Here's the deal:

If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes – you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily...

You have to register and the protection from deportation is only temporary? Who even wants this deal? The alternative is to continue as before, knowing that the government lacks the resources and will to deport you as long as you don't commit a crime other than the violation of immigration law. We, the citizens of the United States of America, are urged to picture this as "living in the shadows." But that "shadows" rhetoric — which appears 4 times in the speech — is aimed at us citizens. And I'm trying to think of a comparably dramatic replacement for "if you register." The word "register" appears in the speech once. Isn't there something ominous and oppressive about a government registry?

2. Overstated reactions to Obama's announcement of his pragmatic continuation of immigration enforcement make his opponents look extreme, and I think that was the idea. Didn't his party lose the elections earlier this month because the GOP had managed to mute its immoderate voices? The Democratic Party needs the Tea Party/Ted Cruz element to speak up, and Obama's speech built a nice stage upon which they can strut, declaim, and chew scenery.

3. Obama got to sound elevated and aspirational: "[O]ur tradition of welcoming immigrants... [has] kept us youthful, dynamic, and entrepreneurial... And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like..."

4. The speech is studded with conservative themes — not rewarding bad behavior, requiring people to take responsibility, keeping families together: Give people who want to "play by the rules" a way to "embrace... responsibilities."

5. On mentioning law, Obama proceeds to a double sleight of hand. Obama presents his independent action as a last resort, a temporary fix, while he waits on needed congressional action:

But until that happens, there are actions I have the legal authority to take as President – the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican Presidents before me.

Almost immediately after that statement, he intones the big generality "we are... a nation of laws," but that does not come in the context of explaining how he himself is following law that binds him. It's about the problem that "Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable – especially those who may be dangerous." See the 2 moves in that sleight of hand? First, he shifted away from presidential power to the law that the "undocumented workers" are violating, and second, he broke that group in two, separating the whole law-violating category into those who are only violating immigration law and those who are "dangerous" for some other reason. The next bit is:

That’s why, over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day. 

So, those law-violating people who are not "dangerous" are completely good people who deserve our compassion. How does that fit with the idea that "they must be held accountable"? We're supposed to lose track of who's supposed to be held accountable and think that only the dangerous subgroup needs to be held to account.

6. Does the President ever return to the topic of his legal authority? No, but he does seem to refer back to the (nonexistent!) place in the speech that maybe listeners will blame themselves for forgetting:

The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President and every single Democratic President for the past half century. 

Now, there is a legal argument for presidential power that is premised on "a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before questioned, engaged in by Presidents who have also sworn to uphold the Constitution." (That's a quote — from the famous steel seizure case — that I discussed here a few days ago). But Obama doesn't say he's using that argument. He doesn't say "The actions I’m taking are lawful because they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President and every single Democratic President for the past half century." He says "not only" are his actions lawful, but they are also the kinds of actions that other Presidents have taken. The past practice of other Presidents comes as a reason to be persuaded that it's a good, practical, not immoderate policy.

7. Do past presidential actions establish either the legal authority or the good politics and policy of the President's proposed actions? I don't know! Obama only states a conclusion that there are all these other examples of the same kind of thing, but to assess any legal/political argument he might intend to be making, we'd need to study each example and make a sound judgment about whether it's parallel to what Obama is doing now. Let's say you buy into the proposition in that quote (in point #6) from the steel seizure case. That quote is from Felix Frankfurter's concurring opinion, and he took the trouble to examine past actions and decided that — other than 3 things FDR did in 1941 — they were not comparable.

8. Obama seems to claim a power to do what must be done even in a nonemergency.

And to those Members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.

First, we — and he — should always question a government official's authority, and it's absurd to accept the idea that Congress's only way to object to the abuse of power is through the passage of a law. Second, Obama's claim of power doesn't include the premise that we are in a position where it is necessary for action to be taken. He just wants "to make our immigration system work better"! That doesn't sound like an emergency, just a policy tweaking. And, as I said in point #1, I don't see how what he's doing changes things that much, not enough to be characterized as a fix to get us through an emergency until Congress gets its gears in motion. If I'm wrong, and Obama is doing a lot, creating a substantial new policy, that weakens his argument for legal power. But if I'm right, and he's not doing much, then what's all the prime-time to-do about? For an answer to that question, please refer to point #2.

9. He acknowledges the objections of some Americans, then insults them: "... I understand the disagreements held by many of you at home," but this is "about who we are as a country." You people are not who we are.

10. Religion! "Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger – we were strangers once, too." What scripture is that? I assume it's Matthew 25:35-40.