Elizabeth Warren: Maybe I'll just freeze deportations as president until Congress agrees to a mass amnesty

I was only marginally excited about this candidacy when it involved me losing my health insurance and eventually my doctor and the country being put on the hook for $20 trillion in new spending at a moment when it’s already running trillion-dollar deficits.

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But now that’s she’s sweetened the pot by threatening to abuse the president’s deportation power in the name of amnestizing America’s giant illegal population, I’m all-in.

Needless to say, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Democrat exercise (or threaten to exercise, in this case) their authority over immigration as president in a highly dubious way to try to create momentum for amnesty. That was the point of DACA under Obama, of course. O got fed up with Republicans in Congress refusing to make citizens of millions of illegals. So he decided to freeze deportations of DREAMers and start handing out work permits to them, believing — or hoping — that that might shake something loose legislatively to address the problem in a permanent way. And even if it didn’t, he’d at least get credit from his base for having acted unilaterally on one of their pet issues.

Judging from the clip below, it sounds like Warren’s ready to build on that precedent. How does freezing deportations of all illegals, not just DREAMers, sound?

What’s that you say? “What about illegals with criminal records”? No, they don’t get deported either. The questioner here specifically mentions to Warren that her husband has a criminal record. Doesn’t faze the candidate a bit. She doesn’t even ask what his record involves.

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It should also go without saying that a “moratorium” on deportations that’s aimed at getting Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform isn’t really a “moratorium.” It’s a permanent amnesty. Everyone who’s here and awaiting deportation gets a “temporary” reprieve while Congress gets to work and then, after the new legislation passes, presumably that reprieve is made permanent. If Warren is serious about keeping the moratorium in place until Congress acts then she’d effectively be engineering a mass amnesty herself, at least for the duration of her presidency.

Imagine how many foreigners might be lured by a “moratorium” on deportations to take a shot at crossing the border.

You would think, given the heat Warren has taken over “electability” after rolling out her Medicare for All plan, that she might be a touch more moderate on other cultural hot buttons, but no, here she is as radical as ever. This is what Bernie Sanders and his fan base have done to the Democratic primary: Not unlike Trump and his nationalist base in the 2016 GOP contest, he’s forced the competition to move further to the fringe than they’d prefer. The difference is that Trump’s nationalist cocktail of issues helped him build key support in battleground states. Good luck to Warren doing the same with her combo of “I’m amnestizing everyone” and “I’m flushing your insurance down the toilet.” Oh, and also “my health plan will also cover illegal immigrants,” which is in the second clip below.

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File this away for the next time we have a “national conversation” over the president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Trump is criticized frequently for his own failures in that regard. Does Warren’s threat to impose a “moratorium” on the basic enforcement of U.S. immigration law count too?


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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | December 16, 2024
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