Obama Rules Out Back-Door Legalization of Immigrants

Washington Times: President Obama said Monday that he does not have the power to suspend deportations, putting the nail in a plan some administration officials had explored that could have granted de-facto legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. A number of immigrant-rights advocates have called on the president to use executive authority to stop deportations, and memos surfaced last year showing that Homeland Security lawyers had looked into the legal implications. But Mr. Obama, in a town hall hosted by the Spanish-language Univision broadcast network, said that’s not an option. “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president,” Mr. Obama said. The immigration issue has dogged Mr. Obama since he took office. On Monday, at the Univision town hall, Mr. Obama said most Democrats supported the Dream Act, but it couldn’t gain enough support within the Republican Party to pass. “I believe that we can still get it done,” he said. “But it’s going to be very important for all the viewers of Univision, all the students who are interested in this issue, we’ve got to keep the pressure up on Congress.” Still, immigrant-rights groups have called for him to go further, and they have led petition drives and a voter education campaign called “No More Deportations” to try to pressure the president to halt deportations.