Any day now, President Barack Obama is expected to impose unilateral executive action to remove the threat of deportation from millions of undocumented illegal immigrants, and in doing so, the authority of the executive branch will be expanded as never before seen.
Such unilateral action regarding immigration reform ultimately boils down to "ignoring the intent of Congress in passing the nation's immigration statutes and violating the constitutional requirement that the president 'shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'" The Washington Post reported.
Obama is essentially "daring Congress to stop him - and betting that it won't," according to the Post.
After all, it was Obama himself who recently reminded the nation in an interview with CBS that Congress has the "ability, the authority, the control to supersede anything I do through my executive authority by simply carrying out their functions over there."
What's odd about Obama's recent talk of executive action to, at least temporarily, pardon illegal immigrants, is that it's a near 180 degree shift from where he stood earlier in his presidency, when he shot down appeals from Latino groups asking him to remove the threat of deportation.
"This notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true," Obama said in September 2011. "We are doing everything we can administratively. But the fact of the matter is, there are laws on the books that I have to enforce."
But the following year, Obama took executive action to halt the deportation of some 1.7 million immigrants.
Now, Obama is expected to expand that program. It's called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and the president is considering proposals that would allow up to 6 million illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. temporarily. Such an expansion would essentially remove any threat of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican and 2016 presidential hopeful, said Monday if Obama acts unilaterally to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, the U.S. Supreme Court will most likely strike it down.
"I think with regard to immigration reform, he's doing something that Congress has not instructed him to do and in fact has instructed him otherwise, so I think the Supreme Court would strike it down - that takes a while, but that may be the only recourse short of a new president," Paul said Monday evening on the Fox News program "Hannity."
