When Obama granted mass amnesty to "Dreamers," children of illegal aliens, conservatives were outraged.  As a policy decision, it was awful.  As a legal decision, it was even worse.  Obama never sought legislation from Congress to legalize the "Dreamers"; in fact, on many occasions, Obama lamented that he didn't have the authority to do so.  But then he changed his mind.  Obama violated the Constitution, creating his own legislation without the legislative branch, acting dictatorially.  Conservatives were rightly horrified.

Now, a month into the Trump administration, President Trump has made it clear that he is going to continue Obama's "Dreamer" program.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called "catch-and-release" policies and begin work on the president's promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

"It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security," Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The memos follow up on Trump's related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen immigration enforcement.

The changes would spare so-called "dreamers." On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014.

Let's give President Trump credit.  He is planning to take a lot of action to build a wall and catch illegals – much more than Obama ever did.  But however good so many of these measures are, they cannot cancel out the fact that President Trump has now wedded himself to violating the Constitution.

A month into the Trump administration, the Obama Dreamer program is now the Trump Dreamer program.  Thousands of illegal "children," some in their 30s and 40s, have now been legalized under the Trump Dreamer program.

It's bad enough that Obama seized power unconstitutionally to do this.  Trump, by embracing this move and making it his own, only deepens the precedent.  If Trump wants to keep the children of illegals here, he should do the legal thing and ask Congress to pass legislation.

Whatever your feelings about the "Dreamers," Trump's illegal action will only give way to more unconstitutional acts by the president in the future.  The next time a president wants to act unilaterally, without congressional authorization, all he will have to do is point to President Obama's and President Trump's "Dreamer" program and say, "See?  There's ample precedent!"

It diminishes all our rights, and all our liberties, when any branch of government acts outside the scope of the Constitution.  Someday there will be a president after Trump, and he may use this terrible precedent to assume even more power and take away even more of our rights.  By continuing with the Dreamer program, President Trump has blown a big hole in the Constitution, and many conservatives, who rightly screamed when Obama did it, are either silent or cheering Trump on.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.