While I sorta support the ends, the means are totally unjustifiable.
President Obama, completely bypassing Congress, will grant amnesty and work permits to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.
This election year power grab is an affront to the Constitution. This cannot be allowed to stand.
June 15, 2012 at 4:14 pm
If the person came as a child, he/she did not make a decision to break any law. His/her parent did. We always say that we should not punish the child for the sins of the father when we talk about abortion. Why should children who have grown up here and know no other culture and possibly no other language than English be punished for the sins of their parent(s)? Should we not have compassion?
I don't like Obama and will not vote for him, but in this instance he is doing what I believe is just.
June 15, 2012 at 5:20 pm
but in this instance he is doing what I believe is just.
It doesn't matter if you agree with the policy, there is a thing called the U.S. Constitution that provides for separation of powers, checks and balances, and all sorts of mechanisms to ensure that too much power is not granted in any one repository. The president of the United States just can't ignore a law because he doesn't agree with it, he has to act through Congress.
Unjust action doesn't magically become okay if you happen to agree with the outcome.
June 15, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I'm with Patty here 100%. I don't like Obama, but by him taking law-abiding children of parents who came here illegal off deportation lists is not the same thing as amnesty. they can still be deported, just not now. This is fair and just and he has the power to do this since it is not a law that needs to pass through congress in contrast to The Reagan Amnesty act in the 80's which was much more comprehensive, and it went through congress.
June 15, 2012 at 6:19 pm
This is fair and just
Again, there's this whole Constitution thing that you're ignoring. By disregarding the Constitution just to get something enacted that you happen to approve of is still fundamentally unjust. If you approve of Obama's actions here (not the policy) than you are fundamentally no different than the people who are okay with the HHS mandate. It doesn't matter that one policy is correct and the other incorrect, it's a matter of the president riding roughshod over the Constitution.
June 15, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Who's son is Trayvon now?
President Barack Obama is using his control over government agencies to establish a semi-amnesty for younger illegal immigrants, even though the nation’s youth unemployment rate is already at a record level.
The new policy was announced as polls showed that Obama’s re-election campaign is losing ground in critical states, including Wisconsin, North Carolina and Florida.
Obama’s campaign deputies have frequently said that the Hispanic vote is critical to their success in several swing-states, such as Florida, Colorado and North Carolina.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/15/obama-enacts-semi-amnesty-for-hispanic-vote/#ixzz1xsqVFs5z
June 15, 2012 at 6:24 pm
My give a damm is busted. I don't care if the kids were born here. I don't care if U.S. culture is the only one they know. Their parents are illegals, defacto lawbreakers, who set a bad example for them to follow. We are under no legal or moral obligation to keep them here so they can break our laws with impunity. Put them on the next bus back to Mexico and dump 'em in the heart of Mexico City, in front of the Presidental Palace, to send the their corrpt government a message: no more!
June 15, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Those children who were brought here legally, through no fault of their own, take a backseat to those who broke the law.
The result is that both sets of immigrant children will now understand that breaking the law produces rewards and following the law is for suckers.
The president's actions are evil in that he violates the law in order to try to gain votes. His actions also produce evil by teaching immigrant children, whether legal or not, that the law is something to be disregarded.
The article doesn't say child immigrants, but people who were brought here as children. There are millions of voting age adults included. **SHOCKER** This will not end well.
June 15, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Paul and LurkerBee hit the nail on the head with what is wrong with this power grab. As Paul said it appears to be unconstitutional. Beyond whether it was done by presidential fiat or through legislation, history has shown that every act of amnesty has lead to more people breaking that particular law. Kennedy snowed Reagan on this in the 80's.
June 15, 2012 at 6:58 pm
The difference between taking children off the deportation list and the HHS Mandate is that I have and will continue to fight against the mandate by petitioning the government and rallying, etc. I will sit on my hands before I take part in sending children back to Mexico.
June 15, 2012 at 7:03 pm
No, Pattymelt, that is not a difference. You are indicating that you're okay with unconstitutional actions by the president so long as they jibe with your sense of right and wrong. It doesn't matter if the policy is bad (HHS Mandate) or good (the current action, at least in your opinion); they are both actions that are blatantly unconstitutional. Tyranny isn't okay if the end result is to your liking.
June 15, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Whether it is tyranny or not, it is my response to it. Just as you are entitled to your response, I am entitled to mine. So there should be no tyranny between us in any case.
June 15, 2012 at 7:33 pm
So you support Obama's tyranny, Pattymelt?
The end doesn't justify the means, and this means is evil and will create a much larger problem than the ill it seeks to fix.
forget the Constitution, there are other results which cause scandal on a massive level.
June 15, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Whether it is tyranny or not, it is my response to it. Just as you are entitled to your response, I am entitled to mine.
Your entitled to your opinion but not your own set of facts. Or, in this case, your own Constitution. So you either believe that it's okay to usurp the Constitution when it suits your preferences or you don't.
So there should be no tyranny between us in any case.
This literally means nothing. We're talking about whether it's ever appropriate for the president of the United States to disregard the Constitution in order to achieve a policy objective. Focus.
June 15, 2012 at 8:05 pm
why are not people like Steve "scotju" Dalton being banned from this site? 0 contribution to the discussion and no charity whatsoever.
June 15, 2012 at 8:09 pm
So in this case some commenters feel the ends justifies the means? Would that rationale also apply to waterboarding, capital punishment and racial profiling? If not, why not?
June 15, 2012 at 8:18 pm
There are some principles which cannot be broken without endangering the Rule of Law. I am not American, but I think that Obama's ruling by decree is dangerous and is quite clear to me that he got some totalitarian tendencies.
June 15, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Not that this makes it right, but I seem to remember some past Republican president bypassing Congress… looks like a slippery slope to me.
June 15, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Don't punish citizens for the crimes of non-citizens by letting non-citizens take work from citizens and undercutting the market value of citizen labor.
Don't trample the Constitution to pander for votes.
Obama is a disgrace.
June 15, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Anon at 3:05 PM, illegals, irregardless of their age, don't belong in America. Pres. Eisenhower understood this simple idea and deported thousands of them in Operation Wetback. Bring back OW!
June 16, 2012 at 12:51 am
Seems to me that President Abraham Lincoln did disregard the law of the land during the Civil War (suspending habeus corpus). Perhaps the end did not justify the means by ideal standards. And Christ may have judged him severely for not upholding the Constitution. But I will risk that for compassion's sake in my judgment and will not ask that children be deported. Some laws are unjust, and this law that would deport innocent children is one of them.