Immigration Reform 2014: Republican Senators Denounce Obama’s Enforcement Review As Threat To ‘Entire Constitutional System’

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that in a letter penned to President Barack Obama this week, a group of 22 Republican senators called the president’s review of immigration-enforcement policies cause for “grave concern," saying the proposed changes would “represent a near complete abandonment of basic immigration enforcement.” In mid-March, Obama ordered Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Jeh Johnson to conduct a review of ways immigration enforcement could be made “more humane." Johnson is reportedly considering recommending that immigration authorities take two groups of undocumented immigrants off of their priority list for apprehension: fugitives from immigration proceedings and those who re-entered illegally after a previous deportation for immigration violations.

In the letter circulated by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the senators wrote that earlier efforts by the Obama administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) heads to use prosecutorial discretion to protect some undocumented immigrants -- such as youths raised in the US who got deportation relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program -- amounted to “an astonishing disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the rights of American citizens and legal residents.” They went on to call it a threat to “our entire constitutional system … when the Executive Branch suspends the law at his whim.”

Politico reported earlier this week that at least a few moderate Democrats are opposed to the prospect of unilateral action by the president to halt deportations. Three Democratic representatives in conservative-leaning districts -- Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Rep. Ron Barber of Arizona -- told the site that they believed action on the issue was the responsibility of Congress. “I don’t care if there’s a Democrat or a Republican president, and I know there is executive order and I know all that,” Rep. Cuellar said. “But I’m one of those who, if you’re going to change the law, let Congress do it … [Obama] doesn’t have the authority to do that.”