Obama Grants Largest Clemency At 231, None For “DREAMERS”

Obama Has Largest Single Day Act Of Presidency

While the Democratic Party may have to wait until 2018 to get a second chance at redemption, there are 231 people who are now living their second chance. President Obama recently announced that he was offering clemency to 231 individuals. This stands as the largest single day act of his presidency.

According to the White House this is just the beginning. Per CNN, White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said that the president plans to continue to pardon and issue grants of commutation before relinquishing the Oval Office to President-Elect Donald Trump.

The 231 granted clemency has now brought the total number to 1324 while Obama has been in office. The president also granted 153 commutations, which brought that number to 1,176 and it also includes 395 life sentences. The majority of commutations included drug related incidents.

One of the biggest reasons as to why Obama is flexing his power in this area is due to the uncertainty of what the Trump administration is going to do. Many feel that Trump is not going to follow suit and deal with those who have nonviolent drug offenses—which is a majority of what Obama has pardoned or given clemency to during his time as president.

However, if some were expecting Obama to have a blanket wide pardon for undocumented immigrants, they are going to be sorely disappointed. There are no plans for the Obama administration to pardon those who are here undocumented before Trump takes office on January 20th.

During an interview with Politico, Attorney General Loretta Lynch put the damper even further on the possibility that the “DREAMERS” or the thousands of undocumented immigrants would be pardoned. There had been some speculation that Obama would pardon that group before leaving office.

“The issue of pardoning someone is an individual decision that’s made on a case-by-case basis, and so there’s no legal framework or regulatory framework that allows for a pardon of a group en masse,” Lynch said, speaking at a Politico Playbook breakfast.

One of the biggest issues of the campaign revolved around the thousands of undocumented immigrants. Trump and the GOP made that a plank in their platform, so to speak, as they campaigned to win both the House and the Senate. Which is why many believe that Trump’s tough talk on undocumented immigrants will cause major problems for the “DREAMERS.”