
Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer speech on illegal immigration (2009 video) - masonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOUGPqtxZSc
======
at-fates-hands
Interesting to note the DACA EO was signed when Democrats held both houses of
congress and the White House. They could've easily passed it as a law but the
constitutional challenges would have probably made it a short lived law.
Instead, they took their chances with the EO route, opened the pandoras box
and now Trump is trying to close it.

This is what happens when you decide an EO is better than trying to pass
actual bills that then become laws. Trump is doing a lot of the same.

Sucks when elected officials are content to write part-time law in lieu of
bills that require bipartisan support, communication and actual work to get
passed.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They could've easily passed it as a law

No, they couldn't, because they didn't have 60 votes in the Senate to break a
filibuster; having _lost_ some Republican Senate support since the time
shortly before when the bill past the House but died with 55 votes for and 41
against in the Senate.

> but the constitutional challenges would have probably made it a short lived
> law.

The Constitutional argument (whether this is _correct_ or not, it is the
argument that is made) against DACA is not that it isn't within Congress’
power to do it (it very clearly is), but that the EO is not authorized by
existing statute and, as such, impermissibly usurps Congress’s Article I
powers over immigration.

So, no, it wasn't done as an EO to avoid Constitutional challenges, those
challenges exist _specifically_ because it was done as an EO.

It was done an EO because the votes didn't exist in Congress, particularly the
Senate.

~~~
masonic

      No, they couldn't, because they didn't have 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster
    

Wrong on multiple counts.

1) they _did_ have a 60-vote supermajority[1] for much of 2009-2010, given
that the two "independents" _always_ caucused with Democrats, and

2) the filibuster threshold was just a Senate _rule_ that could be changed at
any time by the majority (and the Democrats later did exactly that).

3) at least four[2] Republican senators overtly supported amnesty and would
not have supported a filibuster of any immigration measure.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress#P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress#Party_summary)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(immigration)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_\(immigration\))

~~~
tptacek
The DACA EO happened in 2012, not 2010. It's not very interesting to argue
whether Congress should have tackled a particular issue earlier than later; we
could go round and round on that ad infinitum.

