Obama's move on immigration is an unconstitutional disaster for the unemployed

President Obama thwarted the will of Congress and shunned the 20 million under-employed and unemployed Americans by announcing he will grant work permits to 2 million to 3 million illegal immigrants.

This appears to be an unconstitutional fiat that not only usurps congressional authority to set immigration policy but directly contradicts what Congress has already decided. The president suggests that his new policy is designed to enact as much of the DREAM Act amnesty as possible because Congress hasn't acted on its own. But Congress indeed has acted -- three times in votes that rejected granting these illegal aliens the legal residency and work permits that the president now says he will deal out all by himself.

This is a knee-jerk response to pro-amnesty interest groups that have attacked Mr. Obama with an intense, well-funded public relations campaign urging him essentially to nullify congressional immigration laws because supporters of amnesty know that the elected representatives of the American people won't approve amnesties any more. Until today, the president had said that he couldn't just overturn immigration laws on his own. His capitulation may provide a short-term political payoff among some special interest groups but in the long term will feed the perception that he is much more interested in currying favor among narrow interest groups than addressing the needs of the massive ranks of the unemployed.

The unavoidable fact is that Mr. Obama's announced executive amnesty will increase the supply of legal workers to compete for jobs with the 20 million Americans who can't find a job or have been forced into part-time work.  The president may think he can repeal the laws of Congress but he can't repeal the law of supply and demand. ...

But President Obama has moved into frightening new territory with his new announcement because he has taken discretion away from his law enforcement agents and now appears to require them to grant this presence amnesty and jobs amnesty in massive numbers never intended or anticipated by Congress. And it is the jobs promise that is the most insulting and insensitive to the most vulnerable members of our national community.

The most vulnerable Americans are disproportionately black and Hispanic Americans, two voting blocs the president is counting on for his re-election. Yet, these two groups with exceptionally high unemployment among young adults are the ones who will have to compete most directly with the millions of illegal aliens that the president intends to add to the labor force....