Disavowal

Whatever pleas may be urged for a disavowal of engagements formed by diplomatic functionaries in cases where by the terms of the engagements a mutual ratification is reserved, or where notice at the time may have been given of a departure from instructions, or in extraordinary cases essentially violating the principles of equity, a disavowal could not have been apprehended in a case where no such notice or violation existed, where no such ratification was reserved, and more especially where, as is now in proof, an engagement to be executed without any such ratification was contemplated by the instructions given, and where it had with good faith been carried into immediate execution on the part of the United nations.

Last week, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected as “condescending” President Trump’s proposal for a more merit-based immigration policy, she provided a metaphor not just for the shattered condition of Washington’s governance of immigration, but also for the Democratic Party’s ideologically rigid disavowal of all principles of immigration constraint.