Why not?

Interesting that there is a debate about the president's authority to pardon illegal immigrants en masse. Why not? The constitutional structure is complex and requires a certain amount of good faith, which quite obviously has been long lost, but that's not the point. It would be quite a judicial doctrine to essentially take the power away. It could happen, of course, anything could happen, but this one seems unlikely.

The more interesting question is what the political consequence would be. I find it a little hard to believe he would do it before this election; that just seems like it makes the anti-Americanism just a notch too explicit and creates too much backlash. You do it for Christmas, I'd say. (Although of course you can't say it's for Christmas.) If not then, then you do it Jan. 15, 2017. But you'd think it would have beneficial effect for Democrats to do it at the beginning of that election cycle, not after it.