President Obama's latest act of immigration lawlessness was buried in the Friday news dump. A new DHS memo grants de facto amnesty to all illegal-alien spouses, children, and parents of anyone in the military and of anyone who has ever been in the military. Now, it's obvious that the White House picked this group to amnesty because of the bitter-clingers' support for the military and veterans, and this discretionary authority ("parole in place" is the technical term) can indeed be used appropriately under some circumstances. But like any other bureaucratic grant of discretion, it is appropriate only on a case-by-case basis; the administration, by contrast, has amnestied an entire class of people, just as it did with its illegal DREAM Act amnesty, formally known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
We can expect more of this as the pro-amnesty crowd gets frustrated by the workings of democracy and demands that their caudillo take matters into his own hands. The various methods of amnestying different groups of illegal aliens without the consent of Congress were laid out in two 2010 memos, including applying something like DACA to the entire illegal population. One of the memos had this helpful observation:
If going forward with a larger registration program that reaches the entire potential legalization population is not possible, we could propose a more narrowly-tailored registration program for individuals eligible for relief under the DREAM Act, AgJOBS [a farmworker amnesty -- MK], or other specifically defined subcategories. ... If public reaction is positive, it could galvanize the Department's efforts to execute a broader registration program in the future.
Ironically, this latest unconstitutional decree came the same day Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (minus, of course, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake) wrote Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary nominee, pressing him on immigration enforcement and writing, "We hope you will commit to discontinuing these lawless policies if confirmed."
Fat chance.