Prior to that, US presidents pardoned people for what would be considered civil offenses today. In fact, civil offenses did not even exist in the United States until the 1840s.
So it was not the Founding Fathers’ intent to restrict pardons to federal crimes. Messing notes that what we now know as civil offenses were criminal offenses at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, or simply went unpunished. But Yale Law School lecturer Noah Messing has made a strong case that presidents may indeed pardon civil offenses. Some analysts maintain the President cannot pardon the DREAMers because immigration violations are civil matters, not federal crimes as described by the Department of Justice as a prerequisite for pardons. It would be a cruel irony if Obama were to turn his back on those here illegally – through no fault of their own – after he helped expose them to risk of deportation. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, Trump’s pick for attorney general, or Kris Kobach, the anti-immigrant Kansas secretary of state behind Arizona’s controversial SB-1070 law who has been mentioned as a possible choice for secretary of homeland security. This same data could be used to round them up for removal under a Trump administration, which may well include immigration hard-liners like Sen. Under the 2012 Deferred Action program, the Obama administration encouraged thousands of young people to come out of the shadows and provide the government with their names, addresses and personal information. Granting the DREAMers a pardon would be the least the President could do to protect their futures. This power is exercised at the President’s discretion and is not reviewable by Congress. Article II, Section 2 states that “The president … shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except for cases of impeachment.” Past beneficiaries of presidential pardons have included everyone from George Steinbrenner to Jimmy Hoffa to Patty Hearst. The power to pardon is one of the broadest powers granted to the President under the Constitution. With his legacy on immigration at stake, Obama should do the right thing and grant the DREAMers a pardon. This would be completely within the President’s constitutional and legal authority, and in keeping with historical precedent. No one is asking for legal status for the DREAMers what House Democrats are seeking is a presidential pardon for them. The Obama administration’s response misses the point.
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