How Congress Can Stop The Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty—Defund The Bureacracy!
11/09/2014
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The election results are in and the Republicans have a solid majority. The election was decided on the immigration issue, but Barack Hussein Obama is having none of it. An expansion of the Administrative Amnesty appears to be coming sooner rather than later, before the next Congress is sworn in.
Breitbart November 6, 2014 by Rich Tucker

Obama Aide: We'll Act On Immigration By New Year

Ahead of that session, leading Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer went on CNN with a blunt warning: the president intends to change immigration policy by executive order unless Congress — including many members who’ve just been voted out of office — passes a reform bill during the upcoming lame duck session.

“If the Congress does not consider comprehensive immigration reform in the coming weeks, before the end of this year, the president will sign an executive order changing the rules?” Wolf Blitzer asked.

Pfeiffer answered: “He will use, by the end of the year, what options are legally available to him to try to fix our broken immigration system.” Pfeiffer made it clear that means amnesty. “The families who will be affected by this cannot wait on the hope that Congress will do it,” Pfeiffer added.

So, how can Republicans stop the upcoming amnesty for 5 million or more illegal aliens? There is a strategy. Impeachment, though viable, will not solve the problem. First, for the record, the Republicans have the votes to impeach,  but not to convict, as the House votes to impeach, while the trial is held in the Senate.

Obviously, few Democrats will vote for conviction, and conviction—removal from office—requires a two-thirds majority.

The nation stands divided along partisan lines with little leeway for any rolling of any Democrats to the patriotic cause. Obama can be impeached, but conviction is unlikely.

However, there is a strategy that will work to stop and roll-back the planned and ongoing Administrative Amnesty. There is a choke point in the overt part of the Administrative Amnesty.

The overt part of the Administrative Amnesty is the application and processing of the Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and Social Security Number (SSN) for those illegal aliens who benefited from the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty. The EAD is issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), with which one can obtain a SSN. This is the basis for legal employment, driver's licenses, and welfare benefits.

DACA, the overt part of the ongoing Administrative Amnesty differs from the covert Administrative Amnesty in that it requires the Federal government to take action rather than not take action. The vulnerability is that you have to spend money to take action, while not doing something does not involve spending money.

Herein lies the key to both rolling back DACA and stopping the expansion of the Administrative Amnesty. The agency that is administering, for the most part, DACA, and, importantly, the issuance of the EADs, is USCIS, which is bound by its authorized budget.

It cannot spend money that is not appropriated to it, even monies it collects as fees. Unappropriated spending is prohibited by the Anti-Deficiency Act. No appropriation, no spending, very simple.

Now, Mitch McConnell has unwisely stated that there will be no government-wide shutdowns, peremptorily surrendering considerable power to Obama. But given the media's attacks on Republicans, perhaps that issue was a loser given the bad public relations, though there was no impact on the average American. However, McConnell has not promised  there will be no targeted shutdowns.

This leaves an opening that Republicans can use to drive a stake through the heart of the Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty.

The scenario can run like this: The Republican majority decides to send agency specific spending bills to the President, not omnibus spending bills for the upcoming date at which the current temporary omnibus spending bill expires in January 2015. While other non-controversial spending can be dealt with using individual bills for a particular Cabinet agency, Department of Defense, Department of Treasury, etc., the spending bills for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be broken up into individual component spending bills for each major agency in DHS: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and USCIS.

For each riders will be attached that restrict and repeal DACA and other aspects of the Administrative Amnesty. For ICE and CBP, riders should do two things: 1) Prohibit ICE and CBP from ignoring immigration violators, in effect a non-feasance clause. And 2) prohibit the parole or admission of a DACA recipient or other illegal alien.

However, since it is USCIS that accepts and adjudicates applications for DACA, and will be that agency that accepts and adjudicates the applications for EADs for the expansion of the Administrative Amnesty, it would be prohibited from spending any money to administer in any way DACA or any other application by any illegal alien in the expansion of the Administrative Amnesty.

Obama will than have two choices, sign the spending bills or veto the bills. Immigration patriots win either way. If he vetoes spending bills, ICE and CBP law enforcement remain on the job anyway, because they are exempt from shutdown, classified as essential government employees, just as the military is.

However, if he vetoes the USCIS spending bill, USCIS for the most part shuts down, unable to spend money on routine adjudications, as they are not essential government employees exempt from an agency specific shutdown. The impact on Americans is almost nil. There will be sob stories in the Democrat controlled media about people not getting green cards, but the impact will be limited.

In any event, it will be politically difficult for Obama to veto border security spending for ICE and CBP, so he will be a looser on that issue.

And, if he signs the spending bills, then DACA and other overt aspects of the Administrative Amnesty are finished.

Obama can order employees at USCIS to ignore the spending restrictions, but that is unlikely, but if he does, there will be open revolt by USCIS employees, who would face termination and criminal prosecution if they violated the Anti-Deficiency Act, and they can also safely ignore any unlawful orders, as civil service protections will prohibit their punishment or termination for such refusal.

And any order from Obama to ignore the law will increase the chances of impeachment and, more importantly, conviction in the Senate, but more importantly, be indefensible politically.

So, there is a strategy for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to follow. The only question is "Will they?"

 

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