Pat Buchanan

 One-time presidential candidate and longtime paleo-conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan writes in his syndicated column that the president's decision on immigration is a "monumental step away from republicanism toward Caesarism," arguing that an "Obama precedent" was set that would allow a future president to decline to "enforce this or that law, because of a prior commitment to some noisy constituency." President Obama's ability to take action, inasmuch as he ends up taking action—the pro-reform American Immigration Council noted "the full impact of the President's announcement will reveal itself in the months ahead," the "pass it to find out what's in it" precedent—isn't a new precedent but action built on decades, more than a century's worth, of expansion of presidential powers. Although the Obama administration wouldn't argue it because of its implications, the executive action on immigration is merely a more transparent manner to go about deciding which laws to enforce and how that presidents have been doing for a long time. Buchanan says the president's actions on immigration is the kind of thing the American revolution was fought over, although the Alien and Sedition Acts were roundly rejected as unconstitutional when this nation of immigrants was young.



Barack ObamaWhite House6. President Obama
While announcing his plans, President Obama rejected the label "amnesty" for his proposal, saying that instead "amnesty is the immigration system we have today," because illegal immigrants don't pay taxes or play by the rules. Oh boy. Illegal immigrants, 8 million of them, already pay taxes, including income, Medicare, and Social Security. The president's actions won't allow any illegal immigrants to access entitlements they paid into. It doesn't provide legal status or a path to legal status, and neither does the current law. Neither is amnesty, but amnesty shouldn't be a dirty word especially for a president who claims to want to bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows."