SECOND OPINIONS

[Editor's note: This week we hear from some pundits around the country with excerpts from columns they've written about President Obama's executive action on immigration.]

A year ago, when asked if he had the authority to end deportations of illegal aliens he said, "Actually, I don't." Three years earlier, when pressed as to why he could not act on his own on immigration he said, "The notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true."

Well, now the president says it is true -- he can alter the laws unilaterally. Why the metamorphosis? What changed? The law and the Constitution are still the same. Which leaves Obama. When it comes to the truth, inconvenient or otherwise, he is a chameleon like no other politician. He never hesitates to contradict himself, conjuring a new breadth of hypocrisy.

~Gregg Jarrett, Fox News

Like it or not, the president has authority to act alone on immigration. Not only has the Supreme Court recognized the president's discretion over immigration matters, presidents have been taking unilateral action on immigration for decadeshellip;

hellip;Yet just as the president has the duty to enforce immigration laws, he has the power to set immigration enforcement priorities. Under the doctrine of "prosecutorial discretion," he can decide who will be a priority for deportation. In fact, the president has to set enforcement priorities for the Department of Homeland Security, because Congress only allots money to deport about 400,000 people a year - and there are an estimated 11 million undocumented people within our borders.

~Raul A. Reyes, Fox News Latino

hellip;the executive order does more than prioritize. It rewrites existing law. Illegal immigrants won't be deported if they aren't a threat to national security, public safety or border security. Beyond these three categories, deportation may be pursued only if it serves an "important federal interest."hellip;

hellip;It is absurd to assert that the theoretical possibility that a small percentage of the more than four million likely applicants may be rejected is meaningful "prosecutorial discretion." This is illustrated by Mr. Obama's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. Of 521,815 applications considered on a "case-by-case" basis, only 3% have been rejected. With an approval rate of 97%, the president's criteria are rubber-stamped. This is a categorical exemption from the law.

~David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley, Wall Street Journal

To be sure, the president has good reason to be frustrated. His administration has deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants - the kind of tough enforcement necessary to keep reform from inviting a new wave of illegal immigration. And not only did Bush support the reform bill, it is also strongly backed by the public in polls and was approved on a bipartisan basis by the Senate. It met an untimely death in the House, where the Republican leadership - bowing to the party's anti-amnesty wing - refused to bring it to a vote, even though it might well have passed.

Nevertheless, unilateral action undercuts the principle that the law should have meaning, and it makes the ultimate goal of congressional action a more distant prospect. It will reduce some of the pressure for comprehensive reform coming from backers. And it will prompt critics to dig in their heels further.

~USA Today Editorial Board

The natural instinct is to poke back - an eye for an eye. But one Republican, at least, has a better idea. "Rather than poke him in the eye, I'd rather put legislation on his desk," Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told me Thursday.

The idea of Congress legislating seems quaint these days, but Flake's counterintuitive view is that Obama's unilateral action will increase pressure on the president to accept conservative immigration bills and therefore will increase the odds that something resembling comprehensive immigration reform will be enacted. "I think it will be easier in a sense," he said.

~Dana Milbank, Washington Post