Sunday, November 16, 2014

'Ronald Reagan Used Executive Orders to Get Immigration Done in 1986!'

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Ronald Reagan wasn't a Caesar.
No US President should ever be a Caesar.
NOT!

There is a movement underfoot by the left to try to equate what President Obama is about to do with the stroke of his pen issuing a presidential executive order ('proclamation' is more like it) to allow up to 5 million undocumented immigrants to stay in the US without fear of deportation with the executive actions taken by both President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush 41 in the 1980's.

They are as different as apples and oranges. Both are fruit but very different, yes?

This is an important lesson for people who want to know how our constitutional democratic republic should be run as opposed to how some people think it should be run.

First of all, the executive actions taken by both Republican presidents were to mop up some of the cracks in the Simpson (R)-Mazzoli (D) Immigration Act of 1986 that were not adequately dealt with during consideration and passage of the bill in Congress.

Note one thing right off the bat: Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming (yes, that same Alan Simpson who worked with Democrat Erskine Bowles to put together the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction package) worked in a bipartisan way with Democrat House Member Ron Mazzoli of Kentucky for years to get this bill passed in 1986.

Yes. Bi-par-ti-san. Passed the Democrat House by 238-173. Passed the Republican Senate 63-24. Signed into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan.

You know. 'Just like in the good old days'.

Still, the straw that stirred the drink was the legislation passed by the People's House FIRST, the US Congress and then conferenced and concurred with the Senate in regular order. NOT the executive action by one man in the White House.

That is what kings or czars have done in history. Pass a proclamation...and expect the Roman Senate to concur with it just because the Caesar says so.

That is most definitely not the way our Founders wanted America to be run. If anything, their view of government was to have the executive do what they told him to do through legislation, not the other way around.

The second thing to notice is how Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 worked with Congress to get a bill through that they would not veto...and waste all that time doing something for nothing.

We thought about going through the legislative history since we were up there in 1986 and try to explain why Ronald Reagan's executive actions were nowhere near the sweeping scope of what President Obama is about to proclaim (er, 'issue an executive order') on immigration.

And then we found the following blog post titled 'Just Bunk' which we found to be quite good and better than what we could have come up with.

This guy (no name or contact information given) is clearly in the tank for President Reagan and all things Republican. However, we could not find where any of his facts or stats were incorrect based on our knowledge of how this immigration reform effort worked its way through 'regular order' (again, something many people, especially young people have not seen in the past 6 years since the Senate was under the thumb of Majority Leader Harry Reid who protected his Democrat Senators from voting on almost anything controversial over that time including passing an annual budget) in 1986.

1 thing jumped out at us in the summary of the bill: The clear and common-sense way that members of both parties dealt with the tough issue of incorporating the undocumented immigrants in the US for a number of years in a way that still accounted for the rule of law in a compassionate manner that didn't tear families apart, parents from children and vice versa.

This one paragraph seems to sum up what many people on both sides we have talked with tend to agree upon:
  • '(The Simpson-Mazzoli Act) legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt; candidates were required to prove that they were not guilty of crimes, that they were in the country before January 1, 1982, and that they possessed minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language'
We did it then in 1986. Seems to be a template going forward for some sort of immigration 'Grand Bargain' in 2015, yes?

But it won't happen if President Obama tucks his head down and charges into the line and issues his presidential proclamation (executive order) without any regard to the legislative process in Congress.

You want to see gridlock on everything for the next two years? Then watch President Obama sign this executive order.

It will be a mess on Capitol Hill.

NO, RONALD REAGAN DID NOT GRANT AMNESTY. NEITHER DID BUSH.

Propaganda: GOP Hero Ronald Reagan granted amnesty! Republicans are hypocrites! Obama should have the same rights as Reagan! 
Facts:
Democrats are pointing to the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 to draw a comparison to Obama’s intended executive order on immigration, amnesty, purported to affect more than 15 million illegals currently within the United States. Here’s the problem with that comparison:
  • The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 was a law not an executive action.
  • The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 was drafted by Rep Romano L.Mazzoli (D) and Sen Alan K. Simpson (R). In other words, it was a bi-partisan action of the House and Senate.
  • The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 granted Amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the country before January 1, 1982, but it had harsh “control” mechanisms to make sure America didn’t have to face the illegal immigration problem in the future; said “control” mechanisms being firmly ignored in subsequent Congressional and Executive administrations.
Per Wikipedia:
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99–603, 100 Stat. 3445, enacted November 6, 1986, also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, signed into law by Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law. The Act[1]
  • required employers to attest to their employees’ immigration status;
  • made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants knowingly;
  • legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants, and;
  • legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt; candidates were required to prove that they were not guilty of crimes, that they were in the country before January 1, 1982, and that they possessed minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language.
Congress intended the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 to seal the border, stop future illegal immigration, stop future hiring of illegals, and make those here illegally pay penalties for their illegal entry. It insisted these new citizens possess knowledge of American history and speak the English language.
In other words, it insisted illegals become “American”.
Obama, driven by anti-American activists including La Raza, intends to grant amnesty with no conditions to pay penalties or make restitution, no requirement to speak our language or adopt our culture, and with no intent to secure our borders.
And (and it’s a big “And”) – with no legislation.
Reagan did not grant Amnesty. He signed a law passed by Congress.
Obama, in defiance of Congress, is decreeing Amnesty by fiat.
Update:
The initial propaganda (suggesting that Reagan granted Amnesty by executive order) exposed, liberals are now suggesting equivalence between actions Reagan and Bush took to expand the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 and Obama’s forthcoming Amnesty decree. It’s continued deception:
  • The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 gave Amnesty to illegal immigrants who were in the country prior to January 1, 1982. However, the law didn’t address family members who were in the country as of 1986 but not as of 1982. Reagan acknowledged that it would be immoral to deport family members of illegal immigrants who could pass the 1982 test. So, Reagan granted a deferral of deportation for children under 18 who were living in a two-parent household with both parents legalizing, or with a single parent who was legalizing under the new law.
  • President George H. W. Bush recognized that family members over the age of 18, and in the same circumstances as the children above, needed the same protection. He provided it under the “Family Fairness Policy” direction to the INS, which was later codified into law by Congress in 1990 – less than four years after the original law’s passage.
Where is Obama’s Immigration and Control Act of 1986, that “sweeping overhaul” (as Huff-Po describes it) of immigration law that was passed by Congress? He has none. Congress has not passed a law to amend Immigration in over 28 years.
And as Congress has not passed new Immigration Law in 28 years, Obama is not “amending” anything. He’s writing new law on his own. He has no Constitutional authority to write law.
This piece of  liberal propaganda depends on you not recognizing the difference between a President taking action to implement a law that has recently passed and a President taking action to write a LawCongress refuses to pass.
Be smarter than that.

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