Trump mulls loophole, outlined in article, to bypass immigration law

• President Donald Trump is interested in a new article in the National Review claiming a recent Supreme Court decision enables him to bypass Congress to impose his own policies, Axios reported.
• The article has been spotted on Trump’s Oval Office desk, and the president has brought it up in discussions with advisers, Axios reported.
• It was written by John Yoo, a lawyer who drafted President George W. Bush’s legal justification for torturing detainees during the “War on Terror.”
• In a recent Telemundo interview, Trump said he is considering new immigration policies imposed by executive order, citing the Supreme Court decision as justification.
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President Donald Trump and his advisers are considering a loophole outlined in an article in the National Review that would enable him to bypass Congress and impose his own policies to restrict immigration, Axios reported Sunday.

The June 22 article — titled “How the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision Harms the Constitution, the Presidency, Congress, and the Country” — has been spotted on Trump’s Oval Office desk, and the president has brought it up twice in discussions with advisers, two White House officials told Axios.

The article was written by John Yoo, a lawyer best known for writing the legal defense of the torture of detainee’s during George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.”

In the piece, Yoo argued that the recent Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s attempt to remove people shielded from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) act “makes it easy for presidents to violate the law, but reversing such violations difficult — especially for their successors.”

Yoo added that orders by President Barack Obama to impose DACA, and the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding them, pave the way for presidents to impose policies without congressional approval, even if they are in violation of current laws.

Those policies could remain in place beyond the end of Trump’s first term, and take several years to overturn, according to Yoo.

In a July 10 interview with Telemundo, Trump had said that he would soon be signing a “big immigration bill,” which he also called a “big executive order,” citing the recent Supreme Court decision as justification.

“We’re working out the legal complexities right now, but I’m going to be signing a very major immigration bill as an executive order, which the Supreme Court now, because of the DACA decision, has given me the power to do that,” Trump said.