To the Editor:
President Obama’s decision to issue work permits and Social Security cards to several million people who are here illegally raises a couple of issues.
First, the issue of apparent disparate treatment of illegals as opposed to legal immigrants.
This is the experience of someone I know well who came here legally some years ago. Although entitled to legal resident status, our immigration law required him to jump through a number of hoops. A “sponsor” had to sign papers guaranteeing that the immigrant would not become a public charge. The immigrant had to make two trips to the immigration office in Providence — to be fingerprinted, and to have a physical exam to determine if he had any contagious disease that would make him a public health problem. He had to go to the Boston Office for an interview, and — since his English was limited — bring with him, at his expense, a professional interpreter. He had to list every address at which he had lived in Europe in the previous five years, and was told that the authorities in Europe would be contacted to determine if he had a criminal record. The government charged him with a number of fees, and the total cost to him of meeting all the requirements was well in excess of $1,000. In addition he paid a substantial fee to a lawyer to go over the voluminous paperwork and give assurance that all forms were filled out correctly.
This process dragged out over many weeks. Our government does not employ enough people to make it possible for all the legal — repeat, legal — immigrants to have their applications disposed of rapidly.
Now, what does President Obama propose to require of, say, the Brazilians living on this Island illegally to whom he plans to issue work permits? Will they go to Providence for a physical exam and to Boston for interviews, bringing with them Portuguese-speaking interpreters? Will they be required to have sponsors? Will the Brazilian police authorities be asked to search databases — if, indeed, they exist — to uncover any criminal records?
It appears to me that the President is putting illegals on a fast track to have their status regularized more quickly and at considerably less expense than experienced by legal immigrants.
The second issue: what authority does the President have for his action?
Our Constitution requires the President to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress. There is general agreement that the President does have considerable flexibility and discretion in administering laws. But there is presumably some limit to his discretion. There is no ambiguity about our immigration law. It prohibits the employment of illegal aliens. Anyone who employs someone he knows to be here illegally is subject to punishment by a fine, or — in egregious cases — to a jail sentence.
When President Obama decides to issue work permits to several million illegals, he is not making a “discretionary” marginal adjustment to the law. He is eviscerating it.
Constitutional law scholars will debate among themselves about the scope of the Presidential powers, and the Supreme Court, of course, has the final say on this question. The Court may decide to stay out of this controversy and leave it to a Democratic President and a Republican Congress to deal with it however they may.
But if the Court should choose to make a ruling, I hope that it will decide that President Obama has gone too far, that no American President should have the power to take a statute enacted by Congress and rip its heart out.
R.E.L. Knight
West Tisbury