Legislation has been introduced in Congress to stop President Obama from further implementing a “backdoor amnesty” program that has already suspended the deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants, including those with criminal convictions.
The president’s stealth amnesty plan was first exposed last year after internal Homeland Security documents were obtained by the media. The first is a now-famous memo outlining a secret backup plan to grant illegal immigrants amnesty in case Congress doesn’t pass legislation to do it. Devised by high-ranking officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the plan calls for “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action” and “relief” to “reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without proper authorization”
Subsequently, Texas’s largest newspaper exposed a secret initiative that systematically cancels pending deportations, even when illegal aliens have a criminal history. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who say the government bounced their clients’ removal even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.
Last month Obama implemented yet another system to spare a myriad of illegal immigrants from removal by authorizing—and encouraging—low-level field officers to block deportations by using an outrageously broad list of exemptions. The unprecedented program will allow droves of undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. by drastically expanding factors that can be considered to exercise “prosecutorial discretion.” That’s when agencies get to decide to what degree they enforce certain laws against particular individuals.
Apparently it was the icing on the cake that pushed several lawmakers to craft legislation to end the madness. Introduced in the House this week, the Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation Act (HALT Act) would eliminate the president’s widely abused humanitarian parole, temporary protected status and deferred action to spare illegal immigrants from deportation.
The measurer’s sponsor, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, claims the HALT Act will prevent Obama from abusing his authority to grant illegal immigrants “mass administrative amnesty,” which he says is a rejection of Congress’ constitutional rights and shows utter distain towards the wishes of the American people. Smith reminds the president that Americans have called upon Congress to defeat several amnesty bills in recent years.
Not surprisingly, the open-borders movement has expressed outrage and the nation’s most powerful la raza group quickly issued a statement denouncing the proposed law as a “cheap political stunt.” The president should use his authority to suspend deportations of “people who pose no risk to public safety” while Congress focuses on “real solutions” to fix the nation’s immigration system, according to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).
Coincidentally, Obama just spoke at the NCLR’s annual conference in Washington D.C. this week and told the crowd that the idea of reforming the U.S. immigration system on his own “is very tempting,” but under the U.S. Constitution, he is unable to do so without Congress. He did promise to enforce “flawed laws in the most humane and best possible way.”
No comments:
Post a Comment