A communiqué from William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC on Monday warns his followers that President Obama has declared “a form of martial law.”
Last week, the president announced that certain undocumented immigrants who came to the United States at a young age would be eligible for deferred action, a temporary form of relief given to immigrants in deportation proceedings for whom the enforcement of deportation is delayed for humanitarian reasons. If you are able to demonstrate the need for employment, you are eligible additionally for an employment authorization document, or EAD, that allows you to legally work in the United States. Deferred action has always been among the kinds of relief the administration is legally able to offer in lieu of others.
That didn’t stop Gheen from going full-tilt crazy.
“Obama just attacked the 20 million unemployed Americans by bypassing you, Congress, existing federal laws, and the US Constitution. He has declared a form of martial law in America by offering work permits to millions of illegal aliens who claim they are under 30!”
Aside from being wrong, paranoid, and oversimplified, Gheen’s statement is also a lie. The constitutionality of deferred action is not in question; deferred action is already a legally recognized form of relief that can be given to undocumented immigrants; applicants must be able to demonstrate that not only are they under 30, but that they were no older than 16 when they arrived, and; martial law? Really?
To be fair to Gheen, this would fit right in with his belief that the president, whom ALIPAC, as a formal policy, refers to as “Dictator Obama,” is gearing up for a war with “White America.” With that dire fate in mind, Gheen suggested that his partisans soon might be faced with a choice between accepting it or pursuing “illegal and violent extra-political activities.” But what’s that against a dictator?