Why wait for Congress when you've got executive privilege? I guess that's the idea.
President Barack Obama, the president who promised to deliver immigration reform as part of his legacy, apparently isn't going to risk the seating of a new and more reform-hostile Congress.
Word inside the Beltway is, as soon as the midterm elections are over, he will circumvent the slow pokes, 'fraidy cats and assorted nonbelievers in the legislative branch, and with the stroke of his pen sign an executive order on amnesty that throws open the door to America's borders.
The news wasn't supposed to get out in advance of the 2014 elections.
In case you haven't seen the story Breitbart.com broke on Monday, the Obama administration was caught when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was found seeking vendorswho can produce a minimum 4 million blank work permits and green cards per year for five years, and 9 million in the early stages.
That comes to 34 million. Thirty-four million isa figure that represents a 10 percent increase in the population of the United States.
Is the president really making plans for an influx of 34 million illegal-to-legal-aliens in 72 months?
If Breitbart.com's numbers are correct, they are a great deal larger than the official estimates of 12 million illegal residents in the United States.
There arent enough federal employees from here to Pluto to do adequate background checks on 34 million, Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Watchdog.org.
Dane said President Obama appears to be getting his ducks in a row before legalizing illegal residents by executive decree. He called it another petulant display of contempt of Congress.
Nevertheless, the USCIS got an early startFriday, throwing the door open to as many as 100,000 Haitians, who will now move into the United States without a visa. This is how the carefully guarded executive-order secret found the press.
OK, the cards don't come with automatic voter registration, but you know as sure as death and taxes, thats obviously what this scheme is all about. I agree with those in Washington who say this enormous wave of amnesty constitutes "a transparent and cynical ploy to expand the Democratic voter base, creating a permanent majority."
It's a heckuva way to "buy" votes.
Yet, the League of Women Voters will still cringe and whine every time a Republican governor wants to pursue voter fraud and purge the voting rolls of a few hundred undocumented workers
David North, a policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, said Mondays disclosure by Breitbart -- and now other media like The Christian Science Monitor, Newsmax, FOX and the Daily Mail of London -- was par for the course.
It is ironic that the lesser details of this operation, the purchase of ID documents via public announcements and competitive bidding, are all done strictly by the book," North told Watchdog.org. "But the substance -- the proposed legalization of millions of people without congressional authorization -- is handled in a dubious, if not downright illegal manner."
Could all this just be the Washington rumor mill on steroids?
At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in July, senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters the president would go ahead with a "very significant" executive action on immigration after the summer. He added that the action would be so significant it could well trigger impeachment proceedings against the president.
And a USCIS official also told the Daily Mail the federal contract proposal for green cards and other processing documents was published "in case the president makes the move we think he will."
The White House has denied nothing, but a spokesman coyly cautioned Wednesday not to make assumptions.
"I think those who are trying to read into those specific orders about what the president may decide are a little too cleverly trying to divine what the president's ultimate conclusion might be," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Earnest did not say whether Obama plans to issue more work permits.
Dane said Congress should cut off funding for the blank documents that would pave the way to legal residency and citizenship.
I'm thinking, no other campaign issue this year would have a greater effect on our nation. Shouldn't Republicans running for the House and Senate demand President Obama lay his green cards on the table now -- before, not after, Nov. 4? What does he plan to do? What is the truth? Americans should hear from the president, not an office flack.
Mass amnesty by executive fiat would be far worse than a display of contempt for Congress. It would be a display of contempt for American sovereignty, heritage, and law.
We need to know now.
And if it's truly a plan, who is going to clear these illegal aliens? Who is going to process the paperwork? Or are we going to take shortcuts? Maybe put these people on an unprecedented fast track?
Of the many fears voiced by those who know about about this plan I could share with you, none is more sobering than this question: How many violent criminals and terrorists are going to gain legal status under this Obama amnesty order?
If this all comes to pass, if Obama creeps around Congress to do this thing, it will be the worst action of his presidency and a disaster for the nation.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
