President Obama, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the Center for American Progress all resisted selective enforcement of the law under former President George W. Bush. All three now support Obama’s executive action on immigration, which will selectively enforce immigration law.
On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama said, “What George Bush has been trying to do as part of his effort to accumulate more power in the presidency, is he’s been saying ‘Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don’t agree with this part or I don’t agree with that part, I’m going to choose to interpret it this way or that way.’ That’s not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that.”
Obama was referring to signing statements, a type of executive action attached to the signing of a bill that declares the president’s interpretation of the law. Since former President Ronald Reagan was in office, it has increasingly been used to declare a president’s intent to selectively enforce a new law. Despite Obama’s criticism of Bush interpreting laws as he saw fit, Obama now intends an official policy of enforcing only part of immigration law.
On the same issue of signing statements, Reid said in 2006, “It is not for George W. Bush to disregard the Constitution and decide that he is above the law.” Also in 2006, Center for American Progress senior fellow Eric Alterman said Bush was practicing “gross misuse of power” and asked, “Just how much contempt for Congress and the Constitution is too much?”
All three criticized Bush’s tendency to selectively enforce the law. All three now support a plan to selectively enforce immigration law.
On Monday, in a letter to Obama co-signed by five other Senate Democrats, Reid wrote, “We know that you, like previous presidents, have broad executive authority to shape the enforcement and implementation of immigration laws.” In a new issue brief released Wednesday, Center for American Progress policy advocate Zenen Jaimes Pérez wrote, “In the meantime, the president can expand the use of deferred action beyond DACA to other individuals who are not priorities for deportation given their length of U.S. residence, their stable employment, or the fact that they have children living with them.”
Whether Obama’s action now is wise or unwise, right or wrong, Obama, Reid, and the Center for American Progress attacked Bush for doing the same thing in other areas. Not too much of a surprise, perhaps, but well worth noting.
