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WaPo: Obama Can’t Act Like A Dictator On Immigration

Aaron Bandler Contributor
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The Washington Post published an editorial August 5 that was actually critical of President Obama.

The left-leaning paper called out Obama for preparing to act unilaterally on immigration, saying he should “think twice” before doing so and quoted Obama from last fall that if “I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so. But we’re also a nation of laws.”

The Post did sympathize with Obama’s frustration at Congress for not capitulating to his demands.

“In the Republican-controlled House, the GOP bowed to its most extreme lawmakers in passing measures that have zero chance of becoming law — and would have paved the way for deportations of blameless young people raised in this country after being brought here by their undocumented parents,” the Post wrote. “In the Senate, the intransigence of both parties yielded no bill at all.”

While Congress is “hopelessly partisan,” the Post noted “that doesn’t grant the president license to tear up the Constitution.”

The left-leaning Post editorial board accused Obama of simply trying to gin up his base with the possibility of the executive orders, and pointed out that many Democrats would be furious if a Republican president had used selective enforcement on voting rights.

“It would trigger a constitutional showdown with congressional Republicans, who could make a cogent argument that Mr. Obama had overstepped his authority,” the Post wrote.

There are some things the president can do on his own in regards to immigration, the Post believes, such as treating the children at the border humanely, screening children in Honduras, and transferring resources to the border.

The Post couldn’t end their editorial without taking a backhanded swipe at anti-amnesty Republicans in Congress.

“The right response to the collapse of the U.S. immigration system is for Congress to fix the law,” the Post concluded. “The House had a vehicle to do just that by taking up the legislation passed by the Senate last year. But it does not follow that Congress can be ignored based on its failure to act.

“The right response to lawmakers who won’t solve the immigration mess is to replace them with ones who will.”

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