Obama’s Lawlessness Endangers National Security

The realism of national security is being sacrificed at the altar of immigration. And it’s costing American lives.

Kayleigh McEnany

Kayleigh McEnany

Laws exist for a reason — to be enforced, not to be ignored. That is the theory, but under the Obama administration, it is certainly not practice.

Obama has chosen to merge the executive and legislative branches, or to state it more accurately, he has made the legislature secondary to that of the executive, essentially making the U.S. Congress yet another agency stored under the overseeing eye of the all powerful Executive.

Much like our porous southern border, the border between executive and legislative powers has been obscured, if not outright eliminated. This was by design, with the President admitting quite candidly: “It is the belief of this administration… that we can’t wait for action on the Hill.”

One would think that someone seeking to transform the foundational principles of American governance would be a bit coyer, but Obama’s brazen action goes largely without challenge, and so it continues.

Whether in the realm of immigration or gun control or climate change or the many other areas where Obama has expanded his control, it is clear that the enumerated powers of Congress are no longer exclusively its own. While abuse of power is concerning wherever it occurs, it is particularly troubling with regard to immigration.

The Left has succeeded at contriving a narrative that xenophobic intolerant Republicans want to secure the border just for the heck of it, out of spite and intolerance. Lost upon them is immigration’s logical — and some might say obvious — connection to national security.

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Look no further than the underreported news that broke just this week. First, we learned that 60 ISIS fighters infiltrated Europe and were present across the continent during the Paris attacks that left 130 dead. Of those fighters, 40 may still be at large. In short, ISIS took advantage of the EU’s notoriously lax immigration laws and took its bloody reign of terror from the Middle East to the West.

And it appears the United States is next in line. Just yesterday, Lt. Fen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that ISIS “will probably attempt to conduct additional attacks in Europe, and attempt to direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016.”

It did not end there — we also learned just how ISIS would do this. James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, made known that ISIS is utilizing the refugee program, saying specifically that the terror group is “taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”

And yet the Syrian refugee program, implemented by the Obama administration, was sold to us as a risk-free endeavor. He labeled Republican fears of ISIS infiltration as “based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks” and railed them for a lack of compassion, to which Speaker Paul Ryan responsibly responded, “Our nation has always been welcoming but we cannot let terrorists take advantage of our compassion. This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry…”

But nonetheless Obama barreled forward with his refugee program just like he barreled through the visa waiver bill and just like he barreled through the Immigration and Nationality Act, both of which were unconstitutional actions on the part of the President.

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Nevertheless, realism beat idealism as it so often does. The Worldwide Threat Assessment estimates that “approximately five dozen” ISIS-linked individuals were arrested in the U.S. last year. We also know that ISIS members are currently operating in all 50 states. And who can forget the fact that one of the two terrorists who perpetrated the horrendous San Bernardino attack, leaving 14 dead, included one woman who arrived here legally via a K-1 fiancée visa. Thus, it comes as no surprise Clapper notes that there are more terrorist safe havens across the globe “than at any time in history.”

The realism of national security is being sacrificed at the altar of immigration. And it’s costing American lives.


Kayleigh McEnany is a conservative writer and commentator who appears regularly on Fox and CNN. She is currently in the third year of pursuing her J.D. at Harvard Law School. Kayleigh graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and also studied politics at Oxford University. You can reach her by email at Kayleigh@PoliticalProspect.com or follow her on Twitter: @kayleighmcenany.