To the editor:
President Obama made a surprise announcement last week. In essence, he made an end-run around our Congress with an immigration policy change.
Obama's new policy eases deportation rules on over 800,000 illegal aliens in the U.S. and allows these under-30 people to not face deportation and to apply for temporary work authorizations. In other words, federal laws are not going to be enforced. Our President's duty is to enforce our laws faithfully, and he is not doing his job.
By this action, the Obama administration has moved the U.S. even farther from enforcement of immigration laws and is sending what I consider to be an unequivocal message to the American people that it knows best which laws should be enforced and which ones should be ignored. This also sends a message to illegal aliens entering the U.S. and staying in the U.S. illegally that they will not be penalized. That message seems to me to only encourage even more illegal immigration.
The amnesty idea was rejected by Congress and the American people. Obviously, Obama made a political election-year decision to look out for his Hispanic base. It seems that Obama plays by his own rules, ignores our Constitution and pushes unpopular policies on the American people. Our President seems to just invent laws where they don't exist and disregard ones that are already on the books. Many of us view his actions as contempt for the rule of law and the separation of powers. Obama has publicly declared that federal agents will not enforce some of our laws.
One real question here is that if our President is above the law, then why should any of us be compelled to adhere to laws that we, individually, may regard as unfair or imprudent? What if citizens stop paying taxes? I, for one, am further alarmed and disheartened by our President's usurpation of power and ignoring of our Constitution.
Our federal government has failed in one of its most basic functions: Controlling our borders and who enters and remains in our country. We need to do just the opposite of what our President is doing. We need to increase efforts to enhance our border security, reject amnesty proposals and strengthen immigration enforcement laws and measures.
Dave Molek
Yeagertown
