ObamaCare is a monstrosity that will be repealed or ditched one way or the other.

It will one day be nothing more than a bad memory for the republic. Not so with the executive action the president is threatening on immigration and which he will announce to the nation this evening.

The president is threatening unilateral amnesty. This act would be lawless, arbitrary, and unconstitutional. It is a far greater threat than his doomed and unworkable health care system.  

The United States has always been a country that welcomed immigrants. As the cliche goes, we are a nation of immigrants. Nevertheless, in the past we have determined how people will come to our country and we have done this through laws passed by elected officials. But president Obama apparently is within hours of changing that. Even people who share his goal of amnesty should be concerned about what he is doing to the Constitution.

Peter Wehner points out at the Commentary blog that in making the case for his unilateral action on immigration, the president will have on the other side constitutionally-based arguments put forward repeatedly by…Barack Obama. (National Review has a good video of Obama’s previous statements on the matter.)

Wehner writes of the president’s expected announcement tonight:

His hypocrisy is, even by his standards, staggering.

But hypocrisy is not unusual in politicians and presidents; firing a missile aimed at our constitutional form of government is. And that is what Mr. Obama is about to do.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a liberal, said on TV last night that what the president is threatening to do would destroy the separation of powers. This, in turn, would erode liberty for all of us:

“What the president is suggesting is tearing at the very fabric of the Constitution,” according to Professor Turley. “We have a separation of powers that gives us balance. And that doesn’t protect the branches — it’s not there to protect the executive branch or legislative branch — it’s to protect liberty. It’s to prevent any branch from assuming so much control that they become a threat to liberty.”

Wehner writes that President Obama’s coming “act of unmatched narcissism and selfishness” will create a constitutional crisis that will further harm our political culture. At this point, I only hope that courageous men and women will stand up against lawlessness and for the Constitution. And I hope they will succeed. On this depends the future of the nation.