Obama should pardon the 11 million undocumented immigrants before leaving office

This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by Zooey.

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January 7, 2017 at 10:08 am #62532

nittany ram
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Link: http://www.alternet.org/immigration/noam-chomskys-audacious-request-president-obama-he-leaves-office

January 7, 2017 at 11:54 am #62539

NewMexicoRam
Participant

I thought Presidential pardons had to be by name, not as a group?

In the days of computers, I guess that needn’t take long.

January 7, 2017 at 1:52 pm #62554

Zooey
Moderator

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

What Obama should have done…and I can’t think of why he didn’t…is appoint Garland to the Supreme Court as a recess appointment. That would have circumvented congress and directly placed Garland on the SC (temporarily – for one year) which would have been a practical and legal thing to do.

But he didn’t do that.

And he’s not going to pardon illegal immigrants.

January 7, 2017 at 2:10 pm #62560

Billy_T
Participant

Zooey wrote:

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

What Obama should have done…and I can’t think of why he didn’t…is appoint Garland to the Supreme Court as a recess appointment. That would have circumvented congress and directly placed Garland on the SC (temporarily – for one year) which would have been a practical and legal thing to do.

But he didn’t do that.

And he’s not going to pardon illegal immigrants.

Picking Garland in the first place was a huge mistake, IMO, and indicative of the Democratic Party’s false sense of its own cleverness and its bad faith. Obama and the Dems knew the GOP would block anyone he chose, so why not go big, go to the left of liberal, and really make a statement showing the stark contrasts between the parties — even though they don’t actually exist?

Fire up the base. Inspire new people to get out and vote.

But they thought it would be really clever to choose a moderate-to-conservative jurist, and force the GOP’s hand. The GOP just slapped that hand away and laughed.

Which brings us back to your original suggestion. Yes, he should have done a recess appointment, but how much better would that have been if the judge had been at least a true progressive?

January 7, 2017 at 3:23 pm #62574

Zooey
Moderator

Billy_T wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

What Obama should have done…and I can’t think of why he didn’t…is appoint Garland to the Supreme Court as a recess appointment. That would have circumvented congress and directly placed Garland on the SC (temporarily – for one year) which would have been a practical and legal thing to do.

But he didn’t do that.

And he’s not going to pardon illegal immigrants.

Picking Garland in the first place was a huge mistake, IMO, and indicative of the Democratic Party’s false sense of its own cleverness and its bad faith. Obama and the Dems knew the GOP would block anyone he chose, so why not go big, go to the left of liberal, and really make a statement showing the stark contrasts between the parties — even though they don’t actually exist?

Fire up the base. Inspire new people to get out and vote.

But they thought it would be really clever to choose a moderate-to-conservative jurist, and force the GOP’s hand. The GOP just slapped that hand away and laughed.

Which brings us back to your original suggestion. Yes, he should have done a recess appointment, but how much better would that have been if the judge had been at least a true progressive?

A lot better. Because it would be political difficult and expensive to toss the justice aside in December. So Obama should have done it.

But.

We know who Obama is. And that’s why he didn’t do it.
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