by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly that blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30; who are in, or graduated from, high school or have served in the military; and who have not been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors. And while most Americans sympathize with helping those who were brought into the United States as toddlers, raised as\u00a0de facto<\/em>Americans and followed the rules, the policy of exempting hundreds of thousands\u00a0en masse<\/em>\u00a0in the long run may create far more problems than it solves.<\/p>\n First was the cynical timing. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House and could easily have enacted such a law over all opposition. So why was the edict handed down in a tough campaign year?<\/p>\n Then there is a problem of constitutionality, an especially serious issue for former constitutional law lecturer Barack Obama, who ran on the premise that he would restore respect for the separation of powers. But as seen in the reversal of the order of the Chrysler creditors, the attempt to shut down a non-union Boeing plant in South Carolina, the decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and the recent use of executive privilege not to hand over Fast and Furious documents, this administration sometimes just bypasses a now-difficult Congress to rule by fiat.<\/p>\n The move contradicts Obama’s earlier claim that a\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0amnesty “would not conform with my appropriate role as president.” He later reiterated that “some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own,” but “that’s not how our system works.”<\/p>\n In theory, the federal government currently treats illegal aliens on a case-by-case basis, as it allots limited resources to determine who most urgently should be deported and who need not be. The president has added some vague qualifiers to his blanket proclamation concerning schooling and criminal activity. But given that in a state like California, Hispanic males are dropping out of high school at a rate of nearly 40 percent, will the new policy result in summary deportations? That is, once we have chosen those who will not be deported, do we then go after thousands who dropped out, went on state assistance or have been convicted of crimes? And how do we authenticate age and length of residency?<\/p>\n Not long ago, the president, in explaining his personal desire for some sort of amnesty, lamented to Hispanic leaders that they needed to “punish our enemies” at the polls. But is illegal immigration always the single most important issue for Hispanics? Some polls show the Latino community divided almost evenly over open borders. That is understandable, given that the presence of 11 million to 15 million illegal aliens masks the national profile of Latino success. In terms of the rates of assimilation, integration, intermarriage and economic ascendency, Latino Americans who legally immigrated to the United States are mirroring past experiences of successful southern European immigrants.<\/p>\n In Southwestern states, American citizens of Hispanic ancestry share in the increased costs associated with spiraling incarceration rates, plummeting test scores and overtaxed social services, which at least in part reflect the difficult efforts to accommodate those who arrived illegally from the poorest regions of Latin America. A cynic might argue that employers and identity-politics elites jointly welcomed in illegal aliens, the former wanting cheaper labor, the latter wanting more constituents. But driving down wages in hard times and increasing government costs is not always beneficial for small businesses and entry-level American workers \u2014 increasing numbers of them Hispanics.<\/p>\n Finally, is it wise to tie our immigration policy so intimately to race and ethnicity, rather than individual merit and circumstances? Presently we equate massive influxes with Latin America and particularly Mexico. But we forget that Asians now comprise the largest group of new immigrants. Almost all come legally, and many arrive with capital, college educations and specialized skills. Following the president’s election-year example, are we to expect the Asian community, in the fashion of Latino lobbyists, to demand even more visas for kindred groups? Should we now waive the immigration rules for economic refugees from the collapsing European Union?<\/p>\n The president’s decision is politically tainted, constitutionally suspect, cynically timed and poorly thought out. But it did result in one unintended consequence: We are reminded once again that there are millions of foreign nationals dying to reach the United States \u2014 and to stay at any cost after they get here.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly that blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30; who are in, or graduated from, high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[111],"tags":[12,1014,66,281,164,1036,268,1031,128,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-aJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2178,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/voting-present-on-illegal-immigration\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":0},"title":"Voting Present on Illegal Immigration","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Immigration activists and Hispanic groups are demanding that President Obama deliver on his promised comprehensive package of immigration reform. Already, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has derided federal sweeps of illegal aliens as \"un-American.\" And recently the Obama administration stripped the federal authority\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2009"","block_context":{"text":"November 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/november-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3059,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/alligators-moats-and-other-such-nonsense\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":1},"title":"Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic moments in recent presidential history. Nearly everything Obama said was either factually incorrect or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Immigration"","block_context":{"text":"Immigration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/immigration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":959,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/please-a-little-honesty-about-illegal-immigration\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":2},"title":"Please, A Little Honesty about Illegal Immigration","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Barack Obama recently assured El Salvador that the United States would not deport the more than 200,000 Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States. As the election nears, and the president looks to court Hispanic voters, he has also created a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Immigration"","block_context":{"text":"Immigration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/immigration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10722,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/california-the-rhetoric-of-illegal-immigration-and-the-perils-of-ignoring-thucydidess-warning\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":3},"title":"California, the Rhetoric of Illegal Immigration, and the Perils of Ignoring Thucydides\u2019s Warning","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Eureka Vocabulary changes always reflect the agendas of a political debate. The fight over illegal immigration plays out by altering words and their meanings. Take the traditional rubric \u201cillegal alien.\u201d The English has been clear and exact for nearly a century: illegal alien (cf. Latin\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Thucydides"","block_context":{"text":"Thucydides","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/thucydides\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7569,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-childrens-crusade\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":4},"title":"The New Children\u2019s Crusade","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost everything we are told about illegal immigration is both a lie and amoral. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Sometime around 1212, mystics in Europe cooked up the idea that kids could part the seas, reach the Holy Land, reclaim Jerusalem, and convert the infidel Muslims. Thousands\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1507,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-fails-to-square-the-illegal-immigration-circle\/","url_meta":{"origin":665,"position":5},"title":"Obama Fails to Square the Illegal-Immigration Circle","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner There was very little new in the president\u2019s speech \u2014 certainly not his tired hope-and-change trope of blending legal and illegal immigration (\u201cThe scientific breakthroughs of Albert Einstein, the inventions of Nikola Tesla, the great ventures of Andrew Carnegie\u2019s U.S. Steel and Sergey Brin\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions\/666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}