This morning the Obama administration announced a new executive branch policy that, according to the AP, “bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.”

As Daniel Halper reports, Obama said in March 2011 that such a policy would run afoul of “laws on the books that Congress has passed.” And as Gabriel Malor points out, just one year ago President Obama said: “for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.”