Obama is big on making up his own laws and rules. He rules by executive order and he's gotten into the truly illegal habit of unilaterally signing treaties with foreign governments.
This is a very basic problem. And in the context of his deal to take in Muslim migrants rejected by Australia, he is being warned once again that his actions are grossly illegal and unconstitutional.
The U.S. government has agreed to accept refugees being held in Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Sunday. Mr. Turnbull didn’t disclose how many were likely to resettled by the U.S. or on what terms, but he stressed the arrangement wouldn’t be repeated or be extended to asylum seekers not already in the camps.
The conservative government has maintained a tough line on asylum seekers who have sought to cross the dangerous waters between Asia and Australia but has moved to empty the offshore immigration detention centers that critics have called Australia’s “Guantanamo Bay.” Negotiations in recent months with various countries to resettle the refugees became more urgent in April when Papua New Guinea’s highest court ordered the closure of Manus, ruling that hundreds of asylum seekers were being held there illegally on Australia’s behalf.
We’re not even being told the total numbers who will shortly be making their way to our shores, but the Journal notes that two of the camps located on Naru and Manus Islands currently hold a combined total of more than 1,300 of them. And where do these migrants come from? The majority are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka.
Some Republicans are challenging the legality of the deal.
“This situation is concerning for many reasons,” the letter states. “First, your department s negotiated an international agreement regarding refugees without consulting or notifying Congress. Such information was not disclosed to Congress during the annual refugee consultation that occurred on September 13, 2016, even though your staff confirmed that the agreement had, at the time, been negotiated ‘for months.’ Second, the agreement and the number of refugees to be resettled has been deemed by your departments as classified, thus the American people are left in the dark as to the rationale for this agreement."
Why exactly should it be classified? The only people the numbers need to be hidden from are the American people.