He’s been promising it since before his re-election, although he pushed its implementation from last summer to safely beyond the 2014 midterm elections. (A lot of good that did his party.) But it appears Barack Obama will use the stroke of his pen to bring millions of illegal aliens “out of the shadows” and, Democrats hope, eventually into the voting booth to reward their benefactors.

To make the case against this executive amnesty, we call Barack Obama to the stand.

Recall that when Obama was asked in 2011 about the prospect of an executive order fast-tracking citizenship for illegal aliens, he said, “With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed. … The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws.”

That same year, he said, “Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”

In the 2008 campaign, he promised, “I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America.”

Those were the good old days.

Fox News reports that Obama’s 10-point amnesty draft includes, among other things, expanding his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order to more children brought into the U.S. as minors, as well as to illegal alien parents of children born in this nation. These “anchor babies” are already allowed here because they’re granted automatic citizenship under a flawed interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Needless to say, conservatives are outraged. Political analyst Charles Krauthammer called it “constitutionally odious,” also saying it would be “an impeachable offense.”

Local sheriffs may be getting into the act as well, with a planned protest and meeting with members of Congress in December.

But the key to whether the Obama amnesty will go forward rests with Congress. A number of conservative members want to use the upcoming continuing resolution fight to remove funding for enforcement of these executive amnesty proposals, but that risks a government shutdown knowing Barack Obama would veto a spending bill without that funding. The day of reckoning would be Dec. 11, when current funding expires.

Newly elected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insists, “We’re not shutting the government down or threatening to default on the national debt.”

Likewise, House leadership believes the GOP would take the brunt of criticism for not appearing to work across the aisle. Instead, Speaker John Boehner says an overall immigration deal can be struck with more time. Republican leaders like Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers want to give away leverage by passing an omnibus spending bill to fund the government through the rest of fiscal year 2015, which expires Sept. 30. By that time, the excuse for maintaining the status quo will be the impending 2016 election.

Yet Boehner promises to fight “tooth and nail” against Obama’s actions. “Our goal here is to stop the president from violating his own oath of office and violating the Constitution,” he said. We’ll see.

If anything can go forward, it would likely be during the lame-duck congressional session, because Harry Reid still rules the Senate until January, and he would no doubt block anything House Republicans request. Even after the 114th Congress is seated, though, overriding any presidential veto would take cooperation from Democrats. Then again, that may not be such a difficult task given the obvious unpopularity of Obama.

While the Leftmedia is spinning this policy as only being fair to those illegal aliens who are otherwise law-abiding and have given a lot to stay in America, the question is really one of whether ours is a nation of laws. Once Obama legalizes these millions of new constituents, what’s to stop him from, say, allowing the parents of those thousands of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala from being reunited with their children here in America?

Whether it’s just another manifestation of Obama’s sheer narcissism or the next step in “fundamentally transforming” America, the current debate over whether to reward illegal immigration is truly a fight for America’s life.