At a Capitol Hill press conference held on July 26, leaders from the two unions representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents denounced the Obama administration’s willful negligence to enforce U.S. immigration laws.
In particular, ICE union leader Chris Crane, who represents over 7,000 agents, decried the president’s policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” which directs enforcement agents to release illegal aliens who do not meet the Administration’s enforcement priorities, calling it “a failing policy.” Crane described how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had launched it without any planning or foresight. (See FAIR Legislative Update from July 30)
We should have expected that the amnesty and open borders lobby wasn’t going to take this lying down. In an op-ed posted on the Huffington Post on August 3rd, David Leopold, General Counsel and past President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), was quick to take Chris Crane to the woodshed by reminding him that his job as a federal bureaucrat is to implement the administration’s policies, not obstruct them. Never mind that Mr. Crane’s primary obligation is to enforce the laws enacted by Congress he took an oath to uphold, and to make sure his officers do likewise.
Someone ought to remind Mr. Leopold that President Obama is not an unelected king but the President of the United States, as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer he is bound by the Constitution to enforce laws passed by Congress. President Obama is not free to rule by executive fiat, which is what he is doing by allowing unelected bureaucrats to rewrite immigration law to fit their own political goals.