Santorum: Obama broke oath of office with immigration, DOMA policies

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday accused President Barack Obama of essentially breaking his oath office by refusing to "faithfully execute" U.S. laws.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires each president to recite the following oath before taking office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

During an interview on CNN, host Candy Crowley asked Santorum to respond to an Obama administration policy that would halt the deportations of certain young undocumented immigrants.

"You need to hammer the president on this now habitual abuse of power, saying that he's not going to defend the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA]," the former candidate explained. "You know, 'I'm not even going to go to the Supreme Court and stand up for the law that, you know, I'm charged as the chief executive to do.' So you're seeing a pattern where the president says, 'I'm going to pick and choose what laws I'm going to enforce, what laws I'm going to stand up and fight for in court.' That is not the job of the president."

"There's a difference between saying, 'I don't like the law, I wish the law were different, but I'm the president. My job is to faithfully execute.' And he has not faithfully executed," Santorum added.

As for Mitt Romney's position on immigration, the former Pennsylvania senator said that the Republican presidential candidate was trying to "walk a line as not to sound like he's hostile to Latinos."

Watch this video from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast June 17, 2012.