Ok, so you dragged me back in. It's a rhetorical point you are making, but it's really not the same thing at all.
Prosecutors have always had prosecutorial discretion, i.e., the right to decide what to prosecute. Executives have a similar right to dictate how laws will be enforced. Can they go too far in not enforcing laws? Yes. But that is a much different burden (you, the government, should have done more).
"Government, do more" is fundamentally different than "government don't deprive a person of liberty without due process."
Ok, let's talk about this because understanding it is fundamental to understanding Trump's response.
DACA:
II'll try to be mostly even handed here and
@SFBadger96 can argue the other side if necessary.
As
@SFBadger96 mentioned in his post, "Executives have a similar right to dictate how laws will be enforced."
Let's use a much less polarizing example. Here in my town in Ohio we recently had a run of car 🚗 vs 🚶♀️ pedestrian crashes around our downtown square including fatalities.
@SuperMario is familiar with the area. Anyway, the Mayor directed the Police Department to focus on traffic enforcement around our square.
It is absolutely within the purview of the Executive to set priorities in this way. Nearly everyone would support this given the 🚗 vs 🚶♂️ crashes and fatalities. However, there is an unspoken reality that is part of this equation. Resources are not unlimited, they are finite. This inherently means that spending additional resources on traffic enforcement around the square can only be accomplished by spending less resources on something else.
The above means that when you say you are in favor of spending more resources on traffic enforcement around the square, you must also be in favor of spending less resources on *SOMETHING* else. But . . . What if that something else is detective time tracking down online predators? What if one of the cyberpredator's victims was YOUR son or daughter? Are you still in favor of spending more resources on traffic enforcement around the square when it means spending less resources tracking down the pedophile who victimized your child?
For a less dark example, maybe we spend more on traffic enforcement around the square by spending less on speed and DUI enforcement. Still, there are people who are passionate about having better speed enforcement on their street or on DUI enforcement.
Here though is where DACA diverged from the usual, and acceptable exercise of Executive Discretion: When a Mayor prioritizes traffic enforcement around the square over tracking down online predators or DUI enforcement or Speed enforcement, online predators, driving while intoxicated, and speeding are still illegal. If you victimize kids, drive drunk, or cruise through town at 100 MPH, you *MIGHT* face legal consequences. The Mayor's prioritization of traffic enforcement around the square has only slightly decreased the chances that you'll get caught doing these things.
DACA was not that. Obama/Biden didn't merely reprioritize, they openly declared that properly enacted laws that they had sworn to faithfully execute would not be enforced.
The local equivalent would be for a Mayor to openly announce that:
- We are not going to enforce laws about victimizing children online against anyone whose victims are over 14, those older kids can watch out for themselves, or
- We are only going to enforce DUI laws against drivers who have a crash and test 2x over the limit, no more 'one too many DUI's', or
- We are only going to enforce speed laws against drivers who exceed 100 MPH.
The three examples above involve the Executive substituting his judgement for the law, much as DACA involved Obama/Biden substituting their view of what immigration law should be for what we the people through our Congressional Representatives enacted.