Speech #1130127795

There was a 2010 memorandum within the U.S. Department of Homeland Securityone that made it all the way up to thenSecretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitanothat explicitly contemplated using a legal device called parole to enable aliens who crossed our border unlawfully to become citizens. Now. the law makes it possible for aliens with U.S. citizen children who have been paroled into the United States to adjust their immigration status and become green card holders. but parole is supposed to be very rare. In other words. there is a way to get here but not by use of parole. Federal lawspecifically INA S. 212 (d)(5)(a)-forbids the President. forbids the executive branch of government from paroling aliens into the country except for under very limited circumstances. including "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit." That is the text of the statute enacted into law by Congress. But now. despite denying having cleared the path to citizenship. the administration has begun granting parole to beneficiaries of deferred action under the very thinnest of pretexts: The Presidents policies now allow deferred action recipients to get advanced parole so long as they have a client meeting or an interview or some academic research to perform overseashardly an urgent humanitarian crisis. When they get back from their trips. these same individuals would then be paroled into the country and will eventually become eligible to adjust their status and get green cardsexactly as the 2010 DHS memo suggested. All of this. of course. is illegal. But it is worse than illegal. it is illegitimate. If Congress decides to make it easier for illegal immigrants who have children here to obtain citizenship. then so be it. but that is a decision for the American people through their elected officials in the legislative branch of the Federal Government to make. If the President dislikes the law. he. as any other citizen. must ask this body to change the lawmust ask Congress to change that law. He has no more right than anyone else who lives in this country to ignore or change the law outside the constitutional process. But the President and this administration have talked themselves into doing just that. They can try to rationalize that actionto us and perhaps themselvesonly by donning the mantle of moral indignation. It isnt just that it would be prudent or merciful to reform our immigration regime. Instead. the administrations argument is that those who flout our laws have. by the very act of flouting them and by the very act of breaking them. earned some kind of moral entitlement to have the law changed or at least to have the law ignored. If Congress will not oblige them. they will do it themselves. They will draft a law called an Executive order that overturns national immigration policy as established by law and passed by Congress. and they will announce it at a press conference. There will be no debate. there will be no amendments. there will be no vote. In short. there will be no democracy.