Thomas Donlan‘s latest editorial commentary for Barron’s examines the president’s approach to his immigration policy.

Doing the right thing also requires doing the thing right. President Barack Obama knew this. As he said last year, “I’m the president of the United States; I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

Not this year—not now, after the last federal election of Obama’s presidency, when there is no further political check on his actions.

Now the president says he has more authority to change immigration law than Congress has given him or any other president. His reasoning is simple: Congress hasn’t passed the laws he needs to do what’s right.

This is how the president put it: “To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

That’s good advice, but it’s a wrongful order. It ignores a truism of politics: Not making a decision is a decision.

In this case, there is a congressional consensus that the nation is too divided on immigration policy, with powerful constituencies on each side better able to harm their legislative enemies than to turn lawmakers to their point of view. Lawmakers of both parties have been loath to anger their most vehement fundamentalists.

“Pass a bill” would be better advice and more appropriate if the president had tried harder to lead the Republican House of Representatives and the Democratic Senate to find common ground before the election. Obama also did not want to annoy immigration militants who might influence the electoral result.

What’s worse, Obama’s demand to “pass a bill” provides a clear hint that he knows he is claiming to exercise a power that belongs to Congress.

The president’s program would be a reasonable step in the right direction, if it were passed by Congress.