If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes -- you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is.

Perhaps an individual President might find advantages in tying his own hands. But the separation of powers does not depend on the views of individual Presidents, see Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 879–880 (1991), nor on whether “the encroached-upon branch approves the encroachment,” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 182 (1992). The President can always choose to restrain himself in his dealings with subordinates. He cannot, however, choose to bind his successors by diminishing their powers, nor can he escape responsibility for his choices by pretending that they are not his own.

Were we to recognize the authority claimed by EPA in the Tailoring Rule, we would deal a severe blow to the Constitution’s separation of powers. Under our system of government, Congress makes laws and the President, acting at times through agencies like EPA, “faithfully execute[s]” them. U. S. Const., Art. II, §3; see Medellín v. Texas, 552 U. S. 491 –527 (2008). The power of executing the laws necessarily includes both authority and responsibility to resolve some questions left open by Congress that arise during the law’s administration. But it does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice. See, e.g., Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438, 462 (2002) (agency lacked authority “to develop new guidelines or to assign liability in a manner inconsistent with” an “unambiguous statute”).