Civic Illiteracy Among America’s Political Elite

President Trump announced that he would be implementing a temporary pause on certain types of immigration to help the United States recover from COVID-19. And it only took about 14 hours for his detractors to accuse him of exceeding his authority and violating the separation of powers.

New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James threatened to sue, in order to protect Congress’ power to “write immigration policy.” And Jerrold Nadler and Zoe Lofgren claimed, “Under our Constitution, Congress writes the laws, and the president must enforce them as written. This executive order turns that bedrock principle of separation of powers on its head.”