Just back from braving the wilds of western New York, and I see that a federal judge in Dallas has dismissed a civil suit by ICE agents challenging the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty (Obama's administrative version of the DREAM Act). The agents claimed that Obama's illegal amnesty forced them to violate federal law, contrary to their oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution. The judge actually agreed that DACA is illegal, writing that:
Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Department of Homeland Security has implemented a program contrary to congressional mandate.
But he dismissed the case on grounds that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 establishes an administrative process for resolving employment disputes, and that the court didn't have jurisdiction.
The agents' attorney, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, said "the fact remains that the Obama administration is ordering ICE agents to break the law, as recognized by a federal court. It is imperative that this attack on the rule of law be stopped, one way or another."
Obama's usurpation of congressional authority is something Congress has the power to rectify — you know, checks and balances, if they still teach that stuff in school. But they let the illegal DACA amnesty go unchallenged when it was announced last summer because the surrender caucus — a.k.a. the GOP leadership — was afraid that to do so would make them look mean. And then that same brain trust is outraged when the president illegally delays the employer mandate for political reasons. What did they think he was going to do? If even congressional Republicans let him get away with rule by decree on immigration, he'll then extend it to other areas.
I keep quoting Gibbon, but only because it's so apt:
In the exercise of the legislative as well as of the executive power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the senate was mentioned with honour till the last period of the empire; the vanity of its members was still flattered with honorary disinctions; but the assembly, which had so long been the source, and so long the instrument, of power, was respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline hill.
We might as well transfer management of the Capitol building to the Smithsonian, so they can properly outfit it for its true function: a museum.
