In June 2012, the Obama Administration announced the policy that became known as DACA. Several days later, Justice Scalia lambasted that policy while announcing his Arizona v. United States dissent. He charged that it "has come to pass and is with us today . . . a federal government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written." Over the next several years, President Obama routinely suspended enforcement of various mandates under the Affordable Care Act.
I often sounded a lonely note that these actions were unlawful, and set a dangerous precedent. Yet, the constant refrain was that the President had discretion, and these actions were within the law. I replied that this power of non-enforcement was far more dangerous in the hands of a conservative president. After all, progressives tend to like more law, while conservatives favor less law.
And so it has come to pass. President Trump signed an executive order pausing enforcement of prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA):
