As things stand right now, there is a uniform federal immigration law.
This law has been tested numerous times through the federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has declared that the federal government has the exclusive power to make and enforce that law.
Of the three branches of our government, it is the Legislative branch that writes new laws. The making of immigration law is in their hands.
The Executive Branch enforces the law. The Judicial interprets and determines the constitutionality of that law. No one else can make immigration law.
Over the course of more than a century, some of the states and local jurisdictions have attempted to regulate the immigration law by passing state or local laws that affected immigration.
The Supreme Court has generally ruled for the status quo. Nevertheless, some states never give up trying.
So we have some laws on the books that do impact on illegal aliens beyond existing immigration law. Not surviving the Supreme court are the following examples: California tried with a law that denied some state benefits to illegal aliens; the Supreme Court shot it down.
Arizona tried to penalize employers who hired illegal aliens; the Supreme Court shot it down.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court did not say those things couldn’t become part of immigration law. It simply said that only the federal government could do it.
DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was not a law passed by Congress.
It was an Executive Order from the President of the United States. Since it is the job of the President to enforce the law, this order suggests the concept: “I am in charge of enforcing the law.
I am not saying I will not enforce this law; I am only choosing when I will enforce it.
I am calling it ‘deferred’ because it will be enforced,
only not right now.”
The Congress did not challenge this infringement on immigration law. Now, DACA has a time limit. It will expire in March, 2018.
Since the president, who created the DACA executive order, had a term of office that expired long before March, 2018, it can be inferred that he had no intention of ever enforcing the law.
Please note: enforcement was his job. Now, we have a furor over this mess.
To look at DACA with the light of the United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1grants the President “Executive Power.”
It is this power which gives him the power to create and issue executive orders. These are legally binding. Section 3 directs the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Section 3 does not say that the President can ignore or refuse to enforce the law if he should disagree with it.
In Humphrey’s v. Unite States the Supreme Court said the president must obey the law. In Printz v. United States, the Court explained how the President executes the law: “The Court does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by the Congress; the President shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
The current President has the power to terminate any existing executive order.
The same Article and Section in the Constitution that gave all past presidents this power to create them also gives them the power to terminate them. This President is not going to extend this executive order, nor should anyone expect him to.
Because he wants to enforce the law, he wants to end DACA and, finally, close this immigration “loophole.” This is what the previous President implied would happen.
Our current President wants to do his job as spelled out by the United States Constitution; he knows that the word “deferred” does not mean forever.
DACA actually changed existing immigration law. Granted, the changes had a time limit, but they were still changes.
The children could stay, get a good education and, when old enough, get a driver’s license and a work permit.
In protecting the children, this executive order also protected the parents by the “unenforcement”
of the law.
These are items that properly belong in immigration law. If the President did not really want to enforce the law, then he should just have ignored it, and dared everyone to do anything about it.
Instead, he created an executive order.
Someone wrote “Enough about DACA!”, and I will certainly echo that. However, the latest judicial ruling has refused to allow DACA to end in March, not on the grounds that the ending of it is unconstitutional, but on the grounds that it will be too arbitrary.
Arbitrary? Please contrast “faithful” to “arbitrary.” What does the Court mean?
The questions that everyone should be making are these: What is the real reason for the deferment in the first place?
How did the United States and its citizens gain by this deferment?
Why were the citizens who ended up financing this deferment not told what it would cost them?
I don’t know that anyone has the cost figures. However, factor in the cost of providing a first class education, meals, transportation, buildings, medical care, etc. for the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, and you will start checking your pockets for a lot of that money because you, the taxpayers financed DACA.
How did you gain? I know that I gained nothing from DACA; instead my pocketbook lost.
All the politicians,who want to extend DACA and have been willing to take a chance on closing down the government to do it, are still not telling us how much extending it will cost us.
In fact, closing down the government will also cost us a ton of money. Bear in mind that the new national budget does not, cannot, and should not guarantee funding for something that was supposed to end in March.
Should DACA be allowed to continue, it will be funded at taxpayers’ expense without its being in the budget. What happens then to the national debt; to you?
Hey, Mr. Politicians, enough already. Get rid of DACA and let the President do his job. For once, save us our tax money.” Yes, I’m a retired soldier, but I still pay taxes.
Guillermo Barrientes, a retired United State Army Sergeant First Class, Harlingen
