Countering Executive Amnesty - Part Two of a Four-Part Series: Foundations of a Counter Strategy
Article publisher:
Center for Immigration Studies
Article date:
4 May 2015
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
The fight in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over the president’s circumvention of immigration laws to legalize illegal aliens absent congressional legislation is just one effort to reverse the sweeping executive amnesties. This second part of a four-part Backgrounder series by the Center for Immigration Studies presents a detailed strategy to “contain, narrow, reshape, and ultimately replace the president’s administrative amnesties.”
“Countering Executive Amnesty, Part 2” is authored by Stanley Renshon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York Graduate Center and a certified psychoanalyst. The paper outlines strategy, the framing of the arguments, the need for a united Republican response, plus some of the pitfalls of recent suggested efforts. The paper suggests capitalizing on recent polls showing public opposition to the president’s unilateral immigration policy and increased skepticism of the president’s competence. The public should be questioning the administration’s ability and competency to process millions of illegal immigrants in a fraud-free, “fair, non-political, and in-depth way.”
Stanley Renshon, a fellow at the Center, writes, “It would be better to try and supersede the president’s executive amnesties than try to wholly negate them ... There is absolutely no constitutional doubt whatsoever that Congress has dominion over America’s immigration laws. It can set the standards of executive enforcement. It could repeatedly attach those standards to bills the president wants and would sign.”
The report emphasizes the need for ultimately replacing the president’s enforcement policies with a real immigration reform bill. Renshon writes, “Something legislatively substantive needs to be put on the table to counter the president’s executive amnesty.” This will be the subject of part four of this series.