EXECUTIVE AMNESTY WITH BENEFITS: The IRS has confirmed to Congress that individuals granted amnesty by President Obama’s unilateral lawmaking “executive action” will indeed qualify for a refund of back taxes, even if they never filed a tax return:

IRS lawyers have ruled that once illegal immigrants get numbers, they can go back and re-file for up to three previous years’ taxes and claim refunds even for time they were working illegally.

The lawyers said since the EITC is a refundable credit, that’s allowed even when the illegal immigrants worked off-the-books and never paid taxes in the first place.

Terrific–so the President can take executive action that not only transforms individuals whom our law classifies as “deportable” into “not deportable,” he can simultaneously confer upon them multiple benefits, including work permits and now, tax refunds, which will be funded by law-abiding individuals who are present in the country legally.

The conferral of benefits–now even more significant than previously believed–is a key indicator that President Obama’s executive actions on illegal immigration are not, in fact, mere “prosecutorial discretion,” as he asserts.  Prosecutorial discretion allows the executive branch to prioritize enforcement given the reality of limited resources; it does not grant the executive branch authority to go further and grant benefits to lawbreakers.