<< ARI WatchCtrl +  or  –  enlarges or reduces text size.

Yaron Brook on Executive Amnesty

Mass immigration from the Third World is drastically changing America’s demography, culture and politics – leading to white demise, the triumph of the culture of the East (Asian, African, Amerindian) and the politics of the Left.  Immigration is the most important issue we face today because it and its consequences are so difficult to undo.

Grassroots America strongly opposes unrestricted immigration, which is why pro-immigration politicians don’t talk about it honestly. They say we need “comprehensive immigration reform” – code for amnesty / immigration surge – and from then on the government will “control the border” – which control they have no intention of enforcing. Congressional opposition to such reform legislation is more or less confined to the House because representatives are closer and more beholden to their constituents than are senators, and to conservatives (genuine, not neo or donor bought) because Third World immigration is a leftist cause.

In 2013 Democrats and liberal Republicans tried to pass the Rubio-Schumer “comprehensive immigration reform” bill which would have legalized the bulk of the current illegal alien population and doubled the rate of legal immigration. It passed the Senate in June 2013 but stalled in the House. In November 2014 Obama issued an executive order (actually a DHS memorandum) that would accomplish much of what had been in the bill.  26 states then sued for an injunction in federal court. On February 16, 2015 a federal district court issued a temporary injunction that applied to all 50 states. The administration appealed. On May 26, 2015 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, upheld the temporary injunction. [1]

Then the Fifth Circuit deliberated whether or not to make the temporary injunction permanent.  During the deliberation some House republicans, not relying on the courts to keep the injunction in place, tried to undermine Obama’s order by withholding funds for Homeland Security in a funding bill. [2]

Now here is Yaron Brook speaking on his BlogTalk show of March 2, 2015 – the day before the House vote on that bill – beside himself with exasperation that Obama’s executive order should be of any concern. The emphasis is his:

“[About] the defunding of the Department of Homeland Security. Oh my God ! This is, this is the issue of the day? This is the most important thing? What is the issue here? Is it that you hate immigration, and that you would do anything to stop allowing four million people who work in the United States today, who have got jobs in the United States today, from becoming, from gaining legality? You wanna keep them in the shadows? My gardener who does a phenomenal job? That’s the most urgent issue of the day, is God forbid we should allow people who are already in the country, who are already working, from actually getting a work permit. It’s not even about citizenship, none of these people— what Obama did doesn’t grant them citizenship. And by the way, I’ve talked to legal scholars on the right who say Obama was within [sic or a gap in the recording] to do what he did on immigration because of the way Congress wrote the last immigration bill. It left so many holes, and allowed for executive discretion in so many different places, that in this particular case, Obama’s within his executive power to do something about it. But if executive power is what you’re concerned about, Obama’s violated that in a hundred different ways. Go after him in all those things, why pick on immigration? Why is that the issue of the day, the most important thing?”
Nothing to see here, just further usurpation of power by the executive branch having long range and durable consequences for the very character of America, so move along. The above is all Mr. Brook had to say about what was, to answer his rhetorical question, Yes, the most important news item at the time.

Mr. Brook makes much of illegals coming here to work. This is no consolation to those forced to look at them, or to victims of stranger violent crime which Third World migrants, legal or not, commit at a hugely higher rate than whites. Mr. Brook insinuates that working illegals take no advantage of welfare. It isn’t true; they can and do take advantage of many public handouts, and they pretend citizenship to take advantage of even more. Calling the worry about these and many other negative aspects of mass Third World immigration “collectivist” doesn’t make them go away.

As for the legality of Obama’s executive order, the partisan legal scholars Mr. Brook consulted cannot be trusted. The Rubio-Schumer amnesty / immigration surge bill would not have been introduced and been fought over so strenuously had its major provisions been passed already in an earlier bill. Obama lost the battle over Rubio-Schumer and there were no holes, nothing left to executive discretion, in that defeat.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws not of men. In attempting an end run around Congress Obama abused the office of the president and should have been impeached.

Mr. Brook emphasizes that Obama’s diktat did not grant illegals citizenship. But the problem is not illegals becoming citizens, the problem is that they are here. And of course residence is a huge step toward citizenship, which has been the Ayn Rand Institute’s goal all along. Consider the following from  “Set the Bar Low for Immigration but High for Citizenship” by Randy Vollrath in ARI’s undergraduate newspaper The Undercurrent (March 13, 2014):

“Non-citizens ... should be allowed to assemble and advocate for causes they believe in, but they should not have the right to cast a ballot deciding who will fight for their causes in government — not right away.”
Or this from “Let’s Call The Democrats’ Bluff On Immigration” by Harry Binswanger (Forbes magazine December 10, 2013):
“Ultimately, there should be completely open borders ... But a compromise is acceptable, if it’s a step in the right direction ... .”

From what Mr. Brook said on his BlogTalk show it might appear that he supports unrestricted immigration for America – and the unconstitutional act of a leftist, America-hating president – so that he can have his yard work done cheaply. He would destroy America tomorrow in order to save a few dollars today. But considering his mental outlook, documented elsewhere on ARI Watch, [3]  more likely he supports unrestricted immigration for America because such support is in the Jewish culture play book.

Whatever his reason, Mr. Brook’s defense of Obama’s executive amnesty attacks the rule of law.

-oOo-

What became of the injunction against Obama’s amnesty?  On November 9, 2015 the Fifth Circuit made the injunction permanent. Obama then appealed to the Supreme Court and in January 2016 the court decided to hear the case. On June 23, with one justice absent, the court deadlocked 4-4, leaving the injunction in place.

The voting breakdown wasn’t made public but you can be sure the two justices Obama had appointed – Sotomayor and Kagan, both radical leftists – voted for reversing the injunction. Doubtless the two justices appointed earlier by Bill Clinton – Ginsburg and Breyer – voted with them.

Imagine if Hillary had won the 2016 presidential election as Mr. Brook had wanted. She would have appointed judges – just one more leftist would have been enough – to guarantee the success of her campaign promise to increase legal immigration, further relax immigration law enforcement, and grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens.


1  Commenting on the temporary victory for the states, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, said that Obama tried to impose “a drastic change in immigration policy” without the consent of Congress, and that the court decision is “a victory for those committed to preserving the rule of law in America. ... We will continue to fight the brazen lawlessness that has become a trademark of the Obama administration.”

Our focus here is not on the details of this history but rather Mr. Brook’s reaction to Obama’s attempted coup.

2  The relation between the executive order and the funding bill is complicated but in any case the attempt failed, see
“House Approves Homeland Security Funding, Lets Obama’s Immigration Actions Stand”
by Josh Siegel, The Daily Signal  March 3, 2015.
“The congressional showdown over President Obama’s immigration actions and Department of Homeland Security funding has officially ended.
“This afternoon the House voted 257-167 to pass a ‘clean’ yearlong Homeland Security funding bill that contains no conditions related to the president’s immigration actions – allowing them to stand.
“Almost 70 percent of Republicans voted no, but Democrats carried the measure to passage. Not a single Democrat voted against the measure.”
Doubtless licking their chops thinking of future Democratic voters. Or immediate fraudulent ones; if Mr. Brook says resident aliens never vote he is talking to the fools in his audience.

3  Mr. Brook displays his crazy siege mentality in the talk  “Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Semitism”  reviewed  on this website.  See also his entry in  Who’s Who.