Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the so-called Plenary Power Doctrine. I thought of making this video actually after watching another video on YouTube and I am going to go ahead and put the link to that video in the description below. But long story short we are talking about the Plenary Power Doctrine. The Plenary Power Doctrine is a rather interesting thing; I urge folks who really want to get deep into that per se, go check out that link to learn the Plenary Power Doctrine, how it interacts with US Immigration Law. 

Long story short, the Plenary Power Doctrine stipulates that Congress makes laws regarding Immigration and the Courts are constrained in their interpretation of those laws because of the powers inherent to the Congress regarding foreign nationals; that is clearly a power of the Federal Government; it is clearly a power of the Congress to make Immigration Laws and those Immigration Laws are largely left undisturbed in terms of the interpretation of them. The Court cannot be an activist Court regarding US Immigration Law because that's Congress's function. Congress is supposed to make the laws on it, then the President is supposed to enforce the laws but the Courts are kind of there to take sort of a back seat because when you are talking about foreign nationals, especially foreign nationals who might not necessarily be in the United States, you are talking about a different thing. You are not talking about Americans where the laws apply by dint of citizenry, we are talking about non-US nationals and how law applies to them and the laws Congress makes pertaining to them, should have limited judicial oversight because that is Congress's primary function and it is not really appropriate for the Courts to step in in all situations regarding matters pertaining to Immigration Law. 

So leaving that sort of aside, again I urge those to watch the link in the video description, but there is a small part of that and there is kind of a jump cut in the video but it is said in that video that and I quote that “this Plenary Power Doctrine is "judicially created", which caused me, this is kind of one of those things that people hate in sort of the deeper more esoteric aspects of the law because you get into kind of these circular arguments where it's "okay well so the Plenary Power Doctrine is judicially created". I would say that's not really actually to my mind that's not really the case. To my mind, the Plenary Power Doctrine is basically a stipulation of fact which is Congress makes these rules and again it is not really the Court's place in this specific instance to sort of interfere in Congress's rule making capability, law making capability as it pertains to foreign nationals. So to my mind it's not judicially created, it's just judicially noticed if you will.

Leaving that aside, it does kind of beg the question then if the Court says and bear in mind this is the Court saying it's judicially created, I think there's a difference between again them creating it and taking notice of a legal fact but okay leave that aside. if it is judicially created the presumably it could be judicially destroyed and that is what concerns me about the notion of the Plenary Power Doctrine being traditionally created is you can have an activist Court come along sometimes say "no, we don't agree with that, we are going to destroy the Plenary Power Doctrine." I think in my opinion that would have serious negative ramifications in certain ways from a constitutional level just sort of in the sphere of Immigration Law. 

So again this is probably not going to be one of my most popular videos because it is getting into some deep sort of more esoteric if you will detailed aspects of the law and sort of the underlying policies that undergird the law but it is worth pointing out and I think it's rather interesting to look at as to whether or not the Plenary Power Doctrine is just something, or Plenary Power is just something that exists which I believe it is and I actually think that there is plenty of not just case law but history and governmental philosophy if you will out there to bolster that argument. But also again, this is kind of one of those things that the Courts do especially at the higher levels from time to time where they just sort of infer in their own powers where they just sort of kind of quickly say “well the Plenary Power Doctrine is judicially created” which again sort of implies it could be destroyed. So how all this is going to plays out remains to be seen, but as you are probably aware at this point, I will be keeping you updated as and when I see it necessary to take note of these kind of little things having to do with you US Immigration Law.