Elite Amnesty Advocates Frequent White House Visitors

By Joe Guzzardi
August 20, 2014

The only word to describe the impossible-to-kill White House executive amnesty effort is “incredible.” With Iraq, Israel, Gaza and Ferguson, Missouri literally on fire and 60,000 Central American aliens walking across the border to be openly, shamelessly and fearlessly embraced by their illegal alien families, brazen corporate lobbying for more immigration continues.

This summer the Obama administration hosted more than 20 so called “listening sessions “ to scheme for ways that the president can unilaterally act on greatly expanding work visas and granting amnesty to most of the United States’ 12 million illegal immigrants. Even though they have recently laid-off thousands, Microsoft and Cisco were among the inner circle corporations that demanded more visas.

Cecelia Munoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and former Senior Vice President of the radical Hispanic National Council of La Raza, orchestrated many of the closed door meetings with the invitees described as stakeholders who represent diverse views. 

Actually, their perspectives are identical, not diverse. The corporations share an addiction to cheap labor and to President Obama’s irrational commitment to a bloated comprehensive immigration reform bill that would undermine American workers. Those who differ with Obama are shut out. This represents the new Washington D.C. policy making process. The inner circle consists of special interests and donors. The uninvited include citizens and Congress. 

Gathering elites to brainstorm about immigration is a waste of everyone’s time. Their want list is well known: deferred action that would include issuing work permits for aliens, dramatically increasing the 65,000 cap on H-1 B overseas worker visas and granting permanent resident status to the Central Americans.

The question is, first, whether Obama could lawfully pull off a unilateral immigration action, and second will he dare to do it even if he’s advised that he’s on solid legal ground.  Since Obama hasn’t announced what congressional circumventions he may be considering, everything is speculative. Stephen E. Shay, a top Treasury official during Obama’s first term and now a Harvard Law School professor, is confident that the president has the broad authority to act independently.

Maybe Shay is right. But if Obama announced that millions of deportable illegal immigrants would be spared, at least temporarily, from deportation and rewarded with work permits, he would have rewritten immigration law, a conclusion few could intelligently argue with.

George Washington University Professor Jonathan Turley warns that if Obama “goes it alone” on immigration, to use the president’s favorite phrase, the consequences for the nation will be dire. Turley predicted that more executive orders would put America at a constitutional tipping point.

Obama’s rumored immigration executive order is so radical that even some Democrats have urged him not to do it, especially Senate incumbents in tight midterm elections. And if Obama is under the misconception that amnesty would stimulate the Latino turn out in November, he’s wrong there too. Among Hispanics, Obama’s job approval rating has plunged from 75 percent in December 2012 to 46 percent this month, according to a McClatchy-Marist poll.

Amnesty hurts everyone.  Disproportionately, those most harmed would be young (age 18-29) blacks and Hispanics whose July U-6 unemployment rates are 23 and 16 percent. Obama’s sworn duty is to protect Americans, and put their interests first. Instead, since his 2009 inauguration, the president has repeatedly demonstrated that his priority is to illegal immigrants and their lobbyists.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been nationally syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]