I do not believe Obama has the Constitutional authority to grant anyone a specific right to work absent them obtaining a valid green card under the existing laws. Now they could become eligible to apply if somehow their status was changed from illegal alien to invited guest. But I don’t really see that as implied in the pardon clause. Only Congress has the power to change the laws and actually grant a wholesale change in status.
If Obama tries it, and I am certain he will, it will be challenged in court. What happens there is anybody’s guess.
I’m not trying to sound pessimistic; I just managing to accomplish that anyway.
I agree with everything you write.
My only holdback is on the definition of the word “reprieve”. It has a secondary meaning of ‘relief’. Whatever it means, I assume the Founders intended it to mean something different than the word ‘pardon’. They generally did not toss around synonyms for hope of writing engaging prose.
If the courts see ‘reprieve’ as ‘relief’, then it means Obama CAN suspend such laws in the case of those he has pardoned.
And we already know that pardon means that a convicted criminal has had those laws, and a legal conviction, set aside.
I’m beginning to think this ‘pardon’ power is a mistake on the Founder’s part. Ford/Nixon, Clinton/Rich, and I’m sure others. Nothing to brag about.