Obama Twists Truth for Amnesty Decrees

Barack Obama is not a man to let honesty, principles and laws stand in the way of his political agenda. His arbitrary decrees offering amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal aliens are proof enough of this point, especially given the fact that prior to those decrees he admitted on numerous occasions that he didn’t have the legal authority to issue them.

These edicts clearly violate the constitutional separation of powers, which specifies that Congress makes laws, not the president. Under our constitutional system, when one branch of government oversteps its bounds, the other branches are supposed to check it. Congress tried to do so, but failed because Senate Democrats sympathetic to the decrees stopped legislation to defund them.

The judicial branch, in its turn, took action in response to a lawsuit brought by 26 states to stop the decree Obama issued in November to benefit as many as 5 million illegal aliens. On February 17, Federal District Judge Andrew Hanen issued a temporary injunction stopping the amnesty from moving forward.

The administration evidently anticipated what the ruling would be, so in its typically lawless fashion it began issuing work permits to illegal aliens, and a total of 100,000 received these authorizations to hold American jobs. Justice Department lawyers, however, did not inform Judge Hanen of this action. If he and the plaintiffs in the case had known about it, the judge might well have ordered these permits invalidated until final resolution of the case.

Texas is one of the plaintiff states, and its attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a motion of discovery to shed light on this situation. Said Paxton, “In an attempt to quickly execute President Obama’s unlawful, unconstitutional amnesty plan, the Obama Administration appears to have already been issuing expanded work permits, in direct contradiction to what they told a federal judge previously in this litigation.”

In a pitiful effort to justify this omission of truth, the Obama Justice Department says it accurately reported that Obama’s decree did not authorize applications before Hanen’s injunction. That authorization, it explained, came from a directive from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Such deceitful legal hairsplitting is par for the course for this administration.

Another falsehood was Obama’s claim that none of the amnestied illegal aliens would have a pathway to citizenship. Nevertheless, some indeed will have this opportunity, as an official of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service confirmed in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and National Interest.

This is happening through abuse of “advance parole,” a benefit typically provided to foreigners in the U.S. who are applying for permanent residence, an official status Obama claims illegal aliens can’t get from his edicts. With advance parole, these applicants – in cases of emergency or for business purposes – can travel to their home countries and legally come back to the U.S.

The administration inappropriately is offering this benefit to illegal aliens who sign up for the decreed amnesties. If they take it, they can travel and return, and upon their return they can receive the status of “parolee.” As parolees, they are eligible to become permanent residents, and five years after that they can apply for citizenship.

Given this opportunity, critics charge, many of these illegal aliens may discover “emergencies” requiring them to pay a visit back home. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee, has strongly criticized this misapplication of advance parole. He described it as a “sneaky attempt to place potentially hundreds of thousands of unlawful immigrants on a path to citizenship.”

Still another White House prevarication was Obama’s promise that applicants for his amnesties would have to undergo criminal background checks, with the implication that these checks would be thorough to weed out offenders. That hardly is the case. Verification procedures are lax, and the federal database checks are not adequate. Also, as noted by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a number of serious crimes don’t necessarily disqualify an illegal alien. Among them, observed Cornyn, were child pornography, child abuse, kidnapping, larceny, robbery, theft and voter fraud.

Illegal aliens have little respect for American law, and to remain here they commonly live lives of deceit. With the administration having these same traits of character, it’s not surprising that it shows them so much sympathy.