If there was a book titled “DACA for Dummies,” we might find the following, which I read in a comment online:
"Obama wrote DACA with an executive order. That’s unconstitutional (against the law), and Obama admitted it. A program like DACA 'must' be passed by Congress. Left alone, DACA would have been shut down by the Supreme Court. Trump stopped Obama’s illegal action and has given Congress six months to fix DACA if it wants to keep it."
A friend says the forgoing “demonstrate(s) the ignorance of the wing of the Utah GOP" that he refers to as “the crazies.” He says each point made is incorrect. Though I am a political independent, count me among “the crazies.” My reasons follow.
DACA is an executive order. That is beyond dispute.
Obama admitted it's unconstitutional. The Department of Justice brief filed in a DAPA case before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (DAPA being the extension of DACA), quotes Obama repeatedly stating he lacked the constitutional authority to do what he eventually did.
Assuming DACA and DAPA reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the best supporters should count on is losing 5-4. They ought to lose 9-0.
Trump did stop Obama's executive order, albeit with a six-month moratorium. Assuming Obama had authority to issue DACA as an executive order, it follows that Trump has the authority to rescind it. It’s not a law.
My friend says each primary point is incorrect. The points made above establish my friend is incorrect.
The ignorance manifest by supporting DACA as an executive order is ignorance of our Constitution and the constitutional republic it created.
Yes, we, the people, ordained and established the Constitution. We did it to form a union more perfect than what we had under the Articles of Confederation. That doesn’t mean the “spirit” of our Constitution permits acting in the name of what is “moral,” or in “doing the right thing.” Quite the contrary.
The intent was to create a government that would, per the Preamble, "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." To these ends, the drafters of the Constitution enumerated and divided powers among the three branches of the federal government, and between the federal government and the states. Anything not expressly granted to the federal government was reserved for the states and the people.
The spirit of this was to prevent acting on someone’s idea of being “moral,” of "doing the right thing." The founders designed it to prevent any branch of government, or any elected or appointed official in government, from behaving like the tyrant against whom the former colonials rebelled.
Do radicals fighting to establish a caliphate governed by Sharia law believe they are choosing evil? No.
Did Gov. Boggs believe he was choosing evil when he ordered the extermination of the Mormons in Missouri? No.
Pick your time in history and the tyrant who ruled during it. They would unanimously assert they were choosing good. They were being “moral.” They were “doing the right thing.”
It boils down to this. Either we have a constitutional republic, in which the Constitution is the supreme law of the land or we do not.
I refuse to surrender it to the false notion that in the name of adhering to “moral law” or “doing the right thing” a president is justified in violating the Constitution and his oath of office to usurp the role of Congress. That is a path to the tyranny the founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to prevent. That is what the oaths I took as Marine and as a lawyer require me to oppose.
R. Spencer Robinson is a retired attorney and administrative law judge. He received his Juris Doctorate from the J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1982. He served as an active duty Marine from May of 1970 to May of 1972.