Newt Gingrich, writing for CNN:

But the policy the White House actually announced, as opposed to the policy the President described in his speech, was not merely a directive to emphasize enforcement against those who have committed crimes, or even a simple pause on deportations for millions of Americans here illegally. The policy the White House actually announced, in a memo from its Office of Legislative Affairs hours before the President's speech, was a 17-point plan including several new programs without congressional approval, budget appropriation or spending authorization, and many of which the President either didn't mention or which bore only a faint resemblance to what he described in his speech.

The President, according to the White House, has directed the Department of Homeland Security to "create" a "new deferred action program" that will give millions of people here illegally "work authorizations" for at least three years. It establishes extensive new criteria by which people can register to be exempt from deportation. DHS will likely have to employ thousands of bureaucrats to process those who "come forward and register, submit biometric data, pass background checks, pay fees, and show that their child was born before the date of this announcement." Applicants supposedly will also have to prove they have been in the United States for at least five years and will have to pay taxes.

Well, a brand new program that hands out three-year work authorizations and processes more paperwork than many state Departments of Motor Vehicles is not merely saying, as the President put it in his speech, that "we're not going to deport you," and it is certainly not simple "prioritization" or "prosecutorial discretion," as many administration officials have been calling it before and after the announcement.

It is new law, created by the executive without constitutional authority.

The President said in his speech that the new program will allow people here illegally to "come out of the shadows and get right with the law." Meanwhile administration officials explained on the record that he wasn't really legalizing anyone, since he couldn't technically do that.

The President also said in his speech that his actions would offer relief only to people who met certain criteria he described, including having child dependents in the United States. But the actual policy memo makes clear that "DHS will direct all of its enforcement resources at pursuing" people who are "national security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers."

You knew there had to be more to the plan than what the president announced in a 10 minute speech. But if what Gingrich is saying is true, it's a remarkably brazen effort by the president to obfuscate exactly what his amnesty plan will do.

This is an overly broad interpretation of "prosecutorial discretion" by only going after "terrorists, serious criminals, and recent border crossers" while leaving everyone else - all 11 million illegals - alone. It's like Obama has overturned much of immigration enforcement law by a wave of his pen.In this sense, it's a true amnesty plan.

The GOP Congress will do what they can to prevent much of the plan from going into affect. They will defund agencies that will be implementing the plan - at least that part of their budget that would used for that purpose.

But Obama has access to funds that only he controls and it's likely he will use his discretionary powers to fund amnesty anyway.