Leaders of those agencies report to people who serve at the pleasure of the president. They are fired until someone is found who will comply.
Sure you can. How many prosecutions for sodomy have you seen lately in the U.S., even though sodomy laws remain on the books in a dozen or so states? Several years ago, the district attorney in my neck of the woods announced that he would no longer prosecute any misdemeanor domestic violence cases that occurred in the city of Topeka–he said he didn’t have enough money to do everything, so this was the cut he was making (the city decided to give him more money, so he reversed his decision, but for at least a few weeks he would not prosecute that particular crime at all).
It’s a rare government action that can be accomplished entirely by one individual. For example, most (all?) people facing immigration removals have the right to a hearing, and the immigration judge doesn’t even work for ICE, but instead is an employee of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (note the first word in that agency’s name). Are you suggesting that many employees in multiple agencies would be willing to defy the orders from the top? or that all of these employees have so much extra time on their hands that they can meet their assigned goals (e.g., number of felons deported) AND take on a lot of extra work?
What evidence do you have that deporting criminals would use only a fraction of ICE’s resources? Given current funding and backlogs, it would seem to me that the feds could spend every single dollar allocated solely on deporting criminals and still not catch them all.
Obama’s already been through this. He can fire the political appointees, who already believe as he does. He cannot fire dedicated civil servants who are only enforcing the law as written. He needs an executive order to do that, something which he’s only done for Dreamers at this point. He can’t just informally say, “Hey guys, please be lax about law enforcement.”
Immigration laws are not laws that are widely considered to be stupid and senseless and soon to be repealed. Nor is there any question about their constitutionality at this point, which cannot be said about sodomy laws.
You’ll need to cite an example of a law that is today widely enforced, and then all of a sudden is not going to be enforced because someone doesn’t like the law.
Orders have to be formally issued. At this point, the only validly issued order is DACA, which effects only Dreamers. No, federal employees cannot violate a lawful executive order. They can, however, ignore politically motivated pleadings by executives too scared to put their desires into writing.
The federal government could likewise spend the FBI’s entire budget on terrorism and ignore all other federal crimes. If they were being really weird with how they assigned funding.
But here’s the biggest problem with actually writing down an executive order shielding non-felons. Where are the non-felons? The President would actually have to write down, “Identity theft and fraudulent documents won’t count as felonies.” Obama’s order gets around that by forcing immigrants to apply for protection. But if it’s just assumed that all non-felon immigrants are protected, then few are protected. ICE gets a tip about a plant in Arizona employing mostly illegals, what do they do? Ignore a tip about 2000 felons? No, they go in, they arrest everyone, deport most of them, and say they are complying with the law and the letter of Clinton’s executive order. They were all felons. Heck, if ICE really wants to move public opinion and kill the President’s career dead they can leak the names of the victims of the identity thieves.
There is no feasible way to shield all immigrants who are “non-felons”, unless Clinton, with her mastery of legal language, actually said she was going to deport all the illegals, which i don’t think would surprise anyone.
The GOP would have similar problems if they tried to tell the IRS or EPA to stop enforcement against “ordinary” violators. While a lot of government employees are just punching the clock, the people tasked with investigating criminal activity or regulatory violations tend to be pretty motivated. Putting a leash on these people is something the Republicans have wanted to do for a long time. But it’s not easy to do. Good luck telling an INS agent that he shouldn’t do anything about identity thieves in the absence of direct, written, PUBLIC orders to that effect.
You’ve answered your own question. The president can issue executive orders to direct activity and fire all who do not comply. Really the president can essentially not enforce any law he or she disagrees with. If there continue to be issues people can be pardoned en masse.
We’ll see if SCOTUS wants to opine on “shall faith fully execute”.
The President can pardon a civil offense? One that is ongoing? No, that wouldn’t work. The President pardoning your traffic tickets does not mean that all future traffic tickets are pardoned.
And the thing about the way the Democrats set up the bureaucracy is that the President can’t actually fire anyone but his appointees. So even if he did issue an executive order, getting rid of recalcitrant people would not be that easy and Congress would have their backs and call them before Congress to tell how the President wants to protect identity thieves at the expense of American citizens.
There’s just no way any of this actually works, unless a President is willing to spend their entire Presidency on it. It’s not the kind of thing you can do while trying to handle a laundry list of other priorities. And the dirty little not so secret is that Democrats care more about immigration as an issue than actually getting anything done about it. Doing as Clinton promises would make her Presidency about nothing but that. It would be an ongoing battle between her and the bureaucracy and Congress that would be as much a quagmire as Iraq.
Here’s a politifact article about firing federal workers:
What’s hilarious about all this is that Republicans have wanted to rein in the bureaucracy for decades. Democrats created it to be this way on the assumption that the bureaucracy would be naturally inclined to enforce the laws and regulations Democrats wanted. Now on one particular issue, they wish the bureaucracy would lay off. Well, if they want that to happen they need to amend the law and make it easier to fire people. Then we can really have some fun.
Not only is being an unauthorized alien not a crime, but it’s also not a “civil offence” either. There is no question of pardoning somebody here, because quite simply there is nothing to pardon.
But you do have a point. What an unauthorized alien would (presumably) like is to be authorized, and while I’m no expert in US migration law my guess is that the President does not have the power to grant them authorization. All he can do is take steps to ensure that the relevant executive agencies refrain from exercising the power of deportation. Even if he’s successful in ensuring that, that’s not analogous to a pardon; it’s a policy stance which could be changed at any time if the President changes his mind, or if a different President is elected. So unauthorized aliens aren’t immune from deportation; they’re just not deported for the time being. That’s not at all analogous to how pardons work.
To some extent, the question of whether or how effectively the President can do this is a bit of a red herring; in the long term, or even in the medium term, there’s not much point in doing it all all unless it’s accompanied by movement towards legislative change - to authorize (some of) the currently unauthorized aliens, to introduce deportation powers that the executive is willing to use or (realistically) a bit of both. So, to my mind, if a candidate suggests that she wouldn’t deport aliens unless they were found to have committed crimes, the logical response is to say “well, how do you see that playing out, Mrs Clinton?” The position of not-being-deported-just-now is hardly a satisfactory one from anybody’s point of view, so how is that to be resolved?
While we were talking about immigration enforcement, you had also mentioned the EPA, IRS, etc. That’s what I was responding to - federal laws.
You seem to be focusing on what is politically likely, vs. what is possible. I’m not talking about the likelihood of any scenario, just what would be possible. Like, issuing an executive order that anyone within ICE that attempts to deport anyone be ordered reassigned to stare at a wall. No need to fire them, but they won’t be doing the job anymore. Unlikely? Yes, but within the powers of the President.
YOU consider the sodomy laws to be stupid and senseless and soon to be repealed. I can assure you that the Kansas legislature is not even considering any such repeal. 
You are assuming that Hillary Clinton (or her appointees) are too scared, and I don’t see it. All these executives would have to do is put their desires into writing: “I direct that at least 90% of the staff time and money available to this office be spent on removing aliens who have been convicted of one or more of the following offenses: murder, kidnapping, rape, drug trafficking, human smuggling, sex crimes against minors, …” Who is going to complain to their Congressional reps that the feds are spending too much time hunting down murderers and drug traffickers? Which senator or representative is going to allow themselves to be recorded arguing that ICE should not devote so many resources to rapists and child molesters?
However, that’s the point. The people who assign funding control the priorities of the office.
ICE ignores such tips all the time. They know that a raid on almost any major meatpacking plant, food-processing facility, or feedlot is going to turn up dozens, hundreds, or thousands of illegal immigrants, and arresting/deporting all of those people is extremely expensive and counter-productive. The Obama administration directed more resources be spent on workplace audits and less on workplace raids. How many big workplace raids have you seen in the past seven years?
And what happens to public opinion when the president starts talking about the victims of other crimes? What happens when the administration leaks the names and photographs of toddlers killed in cartel-linked violence? What happens when “anonymous sources” start saying that these supposed ICE whistle-blowers are just too scared of (or maybe just too well-paid by) violent thugs, so they’re ignoring the clear directive to focus on murderers and drug traffickers and instead are piddling around arresting people trying to make a living by picking strawberries?