Tuesday’s announcement comes, ironically, as the Supreme Court is two days away from its summer break.
The High Court won’t gather again until the second week of October, meaning it would have roughly a month to hear a challenge to Parole in Place before the 2024 election.
“All of this is part of their goal to begin to legalize illegal immigrants before we get to November because they want their votes,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) said on Washington Watch Monday.
The executive order is a brazen attempt to subvert immigration law without going to Congress, Blackburn told show host Tony Perkins.
There’s more symbolism in the timing. The announcement comes just days after the 12th anniversary of Barak Obama’s executive order that created DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“When Barack Obama created the DACA program for youth, he was told by the Supreme Court that he did not have that authority. You cannot execute an immigration law change without coming to Congress. Well, Barack Obama did it anyway and put DACA in place,” Blackburn said.
The Supreme Court in 2020, months before the election, upheld DACA after an earlier ruling against expansion of the program, a 4-4 decision in United States v. Texas in 2016. It did not rule on the legality of DACA then.
Both DACA and Parole in Place address the issue of work permits, DACA for those aged 15-30, Parole in Place for the illegal immigrants whose have married a U.S. citizen.
A report in The New York Times gave vague mention to the possibility of an easier path to citizenship within any program like Parole in Place.
“Joe Biden is trying to create all these new paths to citizenship and legalization for people that have come into the country illegally,” Blackburn said. “He will defy the Supreme Court. He will defy Congress. He will defy the rule of law. He’s just going to go out there and do it and wait for somebody to challenge him, to take it to court.”
Blackburn compared Parole in Place to Biden’s plan to ignore last summer’s Supreme Court ruling and move ahead with plans to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, and to Monday’s Senate vote on in vitro fertilization.
“Between now and November you’re going to see all sorts of gimmicks," the Senator predicted. "These are gimmick votes. Student loan debt forgiveness is a gimmick because he can’t do that. He does not have the authority.
Likewise, the Supreme Court will tell him when it comes to this immigration plan that he does not have the authority. He cannot alter, expand or contract immigration law without first coming to Congress and having Congress take that vote,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn said the Biden administration is ignoring the rule of law in its quest to retain power.
“This is the way they operate. And what happens when you normalize lawlessness? You end up with chaos,” she said.
Part of the Democrats’ power plan is outright deceit, Blackburn said.
KJP: Don’t believe the videos
White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre sparked criticism Monday when she said numerous videos making the recent rounds on social media were “deepfakes” designed to make the president appear frail.
Videos from Biden appearances at D-Day events in France, the G-7 Summit in Italy and a recent fundraiser have rekindled questions about Biden’s fitness for office, much less the rigors of five more months of campaigning.
“They're doing anything they can to collect power and to centralize power with the federal government with them in charge. They're trying to make certain that Democrats are in charge for the rest of our lifetimes and that they alone hold that power and make the decisions and therefore take power away from our local and state governments,” Blackburn said.
