Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Editorial

The Forgetful Mr. Smith

President Obama’s top immigration enforcer, John Morton, recently instructed his officials to take mitigating factors into account, like an immigrant’s family ties in the United States and education status, when deciding which deportation cases to pursue. It was not a major breakthrough, but it was sensible and humane, which is why it drew the ire of Representative Lamar Smith, who thinks Mr. Obama is too soft on illegal immigrants.

Mr. Smith, who heads the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday introduced a bill to suspend the executive branch’s ability to use discretion in immigration cases. He would not suspend it for every president, just this one.

In a memo to colleagues, he said his proposed law would expire at the end of Mr. Obama’s term, when it would “restore these powers to the next president whom the American people elect — on January 22, 2013.”

The idea behind the discretion is that immigration officials cannot go after everybody, so it makes sense to focus resources on people worth worrying about, like drug dealers, gang members and violent criminals. This is standard practice everywhere in law enforcement.

Without this authority, the administration would be barred from deferring the removal of people who it decides should be low priorities on the deportation list. They could be stable members of their communities, with citizens in their families; or students brought here as children by their parents. They could be temporarily stuck here because their home countries were devastated by natural disasters.

Back in 1999, Mr. Smith was one of several members of Congress who wrote the attorney general and the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, arguing that “unfair” deportations had caused “unjustifiable hardship” for otherwise law-abiding immigrants who had jobs and families and close citizen relatives. “True hardship cases call for the exercise of discretion,” the letter said.

Hard to explain the change, although hypocrisy and rank opportunism seem likely.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: The Forgetful Mr. Smith. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT