Almost like clockwork. On Friday, the president issued a proclamation that makes anyone caught crossing the southwest border between ports of entry — i.e., illegally — ineligible for asylum.
The same day, Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), respectively ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, issued a joint statement reading in part:
No one is above the law, including the President. Our Constitution simply does not allow the President to rewrite the laws on his own. It is particularly ugly that today’s announcement seeks to impose illegal restrictions on migrants fleeing violence and abuse.
Rather than engage in unconstitutional attempts to circumvent the law, the President should work with Congress to achieve the kind of bipartisan reforms needed to fix our immigration system.
How soon they forget. It was just four years ago when, under almost identical circumstances, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Barack Obama urging him to use broad presidential powers to tighten immigration rules in response to a wave of migration from Central America.
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In her note, Feinstein referred to Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which grants the president the authority to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
The statute gave Obama wide latitude to issue new regulations concerning the entry and detention of migrants, Feinstein wrote, including limiting deportation appeal rights and keeping children in the custody of immigration authorities rather than transferring them to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It therefore appears that no legislation is necessary to give your administration the tools it needs to respond to this crisis, and that any needed temporary measures can be implemented through presidential action,” Feinstein concluded.
That same law is still on the books, meaning that “no legislation is necessary” for Obama’s successor either. Is Nadler, who is in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, unaware of that fact?
This is not the first time the Democrats have demonstrated their hypocrisy on the issue of immigration. Here’s an entire blooper reel of such behaviors.