The claim that President Obama's implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program went beyond his constitutional responsibilities is more of the same view that was established by the insurgent Tea Party of 2009. This current position comes from both President Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) and the President himself. Obviously, at this point, only the most devoted Trump supporter will fall in line with the President's efforts to kill the program.
Always claiming the Constitution
But even the most reluctant Republicans have also fallen in line behind the President and excuse their support by claiming that ending the program is constitutional. Various conservative news sources have done this by printing headlines that claim that the decision "restores the Constitution." President Trump's effort to end the program also adds to a pattern we've already seen develop over the first several months of Trump's presidency, which is his goal is to roll back every executive order that Obama set in place.
The makeup of Obama's executive orders
President Obama faced significant challenges with Congress during his two terms, especially when Republicans took the majority during his first term.
Since then, the gridlock has calcified into what we see today and resulted in "calcium deposit" of a weaponized president that has ultimately taken Tea Party revenge against the Obama-era. President Obama's executive orders were for the most part, a result of that gridlock from which DACA was born.
Because executive orders do not require the direct involvement of Congress, they can be dismantled easily. But this was not how it was supposed to work with Obama's executive orders as a Clinton administration would have continued most of them. Likely, so would a Sanders administration. But the accusation that President Obama's DACA program is unconstitutional would attempt to take all of Congress with it, as executive action institutes the President's maximum power as granted to him by Congress.
The false argument over DACA being 'unconstitutional'
Saying that what Obama did was unconstitutional would suggest that a united Congress was at its weakest. Going even further, one argument posed by a Think Progress article titled: "DACA is not unconstitutional," states that no one argues that Congress does not have the power to determine the country's immigration process and who stays and who goes. Were it not for this; there would not be an immigration system.
But the article argues that despite attorney general Jeff Sessions coming out to say that the executive branch's actions were unconstitutional, that the debate over the DACA program is not a constitutional matter. The argument is more over a matter of whether the executive branch can act on its own to give benefits the executive order provides to those participating in the program.
These being the permission to work, to be eligible for Medicare and Social Security benefits and to have protection against deportation.
Already, President Trump has presented himself to be a threat to the Constitution with his pardon of Joe Arpaio from being convicted of being in contempt of a federal court. So, the claim from Trump's attorney general that the Executive Branch under Obama acted as unconstitutional is laughable and as the Think Progress article suggests, "nonsense."