Nobody’s Happy with the President’s Action on Immigration

President Obama has gotten a lot of negative feedback since he decided to single-handedly “fix” the immigration system. Nearly half of the states are suing his administration, and most Americans think he’s disrupted the Constitutional checks and balances.

Arkansas, Michigan, North Dakota and Oklahoma joined 20 other states, led by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, in a lawsuit against Obama and his immigration enforcement officers. The Lone Star State will be especially harmed by Obama’s executive action because of its long border with Mexico. They’ve already seen what kind of consequences await, since a flood of illegal immigrants followed the DACA actions the President took in 2012.

The lawsuit says Obama has “trampled” the U.S. Constitution by unilaterally deciding to spare millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. “There is no such thing as ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to an entire class of people like this,” says Abbott, who will soon take the office of Governor in Texas.

The presidential decree “circumvents the will of the American people,” but it isn’t being challenged just because states don’t like it. The president had no legal right to create his own rules when Congress has not passed a law. This is the main difference between his action and those of Presidents Reagan and Bush, which have been offered as examples for Obama’s authority. Those orders enforced laws that Congress had duly passed. Obama is making up his own.

State leaders aren’t the only ones upset. A recent poll shows that Obama’s action makes Americans worry for the future of their government.

Majorities of American voters think President Barack Obama exceeded his authority with recent executive actions on immigration — and are worried he may be permanently altering the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution.

Sixty percent of poll respondents disapproved of the President’s bypassing Congress, and 54% say he “exceeded his authority” in doing so. Even half of Hispanic voters, who were twice as likely to approve of the actions, don’t think the President had proper authority to do what he did.

Obama’s speech promised that his action will not increase illegal border crossings, because “This deal does not apply … to anyone who might come to America illegally in the future.” But Americans are not feeling assured. A whopping 74% think the numbers will go up despite what Obama says.

All this hullaballoo about something voters don’t even think should be the President’s main focus right now. Is it worth it, Obama?

Most revealing is the fact that 42 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents and 93 percent of Republicans said they are worried that Obama’s executive orders and unilateral actions are “permanently altering” the nation’s balance of powers.

More and more Americans are waking up to the fact that our federal government is way over its boundary lines. Those who think the President is changing the balance of power are right. And it’s been going on for many years, through many presidencies and beyond the executive branch.

The federal government has ballooned far beyond a size the Founders ever intended it to be. Federal agencies have taken control that rightfully belongs to the citizens. Congress legislates on issues that should be left to the states. And the Supreme Court thinks it’s become a legislative body. Read the Constitution’s description of the scope of each branch’s authority today, and you won’t even recognize it.

It’s high time for Americans to act like the sovereign citizens we are. When we see a problem, we have the power to address it. The framers of the Constitution left us an “escape clause” for the time when (not if) the federal government would try to seize control. They knew it was pretty much inevitable, so they added a paragraph in Article V allowing the people to rein in their government by amending the Constitution through their state legislatures.

The movement for a Convention of States to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government is well underway. Learn more, join the movement, and read about our progress at ConventionofStates.com.