Constitution gives Congress, not Biden administration, power to regulate immigration
The Constitution does not have a provision, or indeed a need, for Congress to pass, or even discuss, any immigration laws.
Yet Biden’s administration has been doing just that for many years by attempting to regulate immigration, a right that the Constitution grants to the federal government. If the president’s plans are blocked, his administration will be in violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution.
One of my colleagues, Noah Rothman of the New York Times, has pointed out this important point:
The constitutional flaw in President Obama’s proposals is not the fact that they rely on something the Constitution does not, but that they do not rely on anything the Constitution actually does. They rely, instead, on a single word in that document: The president’s authority to “establish an uniform rule of apportionment among the several states” [Emphasis added]. Even worse is Obama’s suggestion that, if a state is unable to meet its obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment, it must face being “isolated” for immigration regulation from the rest of the nation.
The problem is the President’s plan lacks any constitutional power to act. When he claims that the right to due process in immigration proceedings has been “eviscerated” as a result of his plans, he is simply wrong.
For that matter, he is also dead wrong in claiming that the Constitution grants Congress the power to pass immigration laws, when it clearly doesn’t. The Constitution, in fact, says, quite plainly, in Article I, Section 9 [emphasis added]:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect such Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, as may from time to time be had, as well for the Security of the United States as for other Purposes.
[emphasis added]. The power to “lay and collect taxes” is unquestionably limited to federal taxes.
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