In the case of Obama`s action to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants and allow them to apply for work permits, states have called on federal courts to intervene and end this amnesty for executives. And they did so, at least temporarily, until future decisions were made on whether these measures were constitutional and should be ordered permanently. In particular, several related factors make executive orders particularly attractive to a president. First of all, there is speed. Even if a president is reasonably confident of getting the congressional legislation he wants, he will have to wait for congressional deliberations to take their course. Without exception, it can achieve much faster, if not immediate, results by issuing a decree. Moreover, when a president acts on orders, he or she avoids having to subject his or her policies to public scrutiny and debate. Secondly, flexibility. Decrees have the force of law.
However, they differ from congressional legislation in that a president can change any executive order simply with the stroke of a pen — simply by issuing a different executive order. As mentioned earlier, the presidents developed the classification system for national security documents in exactly this way. Finally, executive orders allow the president not only to dodge tough opposition in Congress, but also to pre-empt potential or growing oppositions in order to unbalance Congress and diminish his ability to formulate a powerful counter-position. While the President legally exercises any of these responsibilities, researchers generally agree that the scope of his or her authority to issue orders in council and other guidelines is particularly broad. As a result, Congress has few opportunities to regulate or restrict this authority. In particular, article II of the Constitution assigns to the President the roles of Commander-in-Chief, Head of State, Head of Law Enforcement and Head of the Executive. The president has the sole constitutional obligation to “ensure that laws are faithfully enforced,” and he has broad discretion over the decisions of federal law enforcement agencies. While Reagan and both Bushes — all Republican presidents — issued a significant number of executive orders, conservative scholars argue that Democrats Clinton and Obama regularly overstepped their authority to issue such directives in arenas where Congress had not acted. . .
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