U.S. News & World Report
By Lauren Fox
May 8, 2014
Republicans
are growing increasingly unnerved that President Barack Obama will move
on immigration reform without them, but even that threat isn’t lighting
a fire beneath
the caucus to act before the August recess.
“It
is very clear the president will act, and it is very clear to me that
once the president acts, there is no further negotiations because it
will just explode,” says
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who has spent years in Congress focused
on bipartisan immigration proposals. “Everything just blows up.”
House
Republicans openly say the White House is losing patience, looking for a
quick political gain ahead of the 2014 midterm elections and is willing
to go ahead even
if it means injecting more polarization on Capitol Hill.
“I
would say from a senior member of the House of Representatives to the
president of the United States, that it is an unwise thing to do. It is
an unwise road to go down,
and it will further divide the country,” says Rep. Pete Sessions,
R-Texas. “It would draw the ire of any member of Congress who has been
here … We do not have a dictatorship.”
Despite
the fact the House has yet to bring a series of bills to the floor to
address immigration reform, Sessions argues that Republicans are working
on the issue back
home and have sent a “strong signal” to Democrats and the White House
that they are going to act after November.
“After
the election, there would be a proper understanding that we are going
to get our whack at a bill,” Sessions says. He adds later that ““If we
win the United States
Senate with Republicans, there is going to be a thirst.”
Some
Republicans, like Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., says a unilateral action
would undo a lot of trust he has personally acquired back home with the
base.
“Everyone
recognizes he doesn’t have authority,” says Mulvaney, R-S.C., who
stands in contrast against other tea party members as an immigration
reform advocate in the
House.
Mulvaney
has spent the last several months traveling through his district,
holding Spanish-language town halls and pushing for reform. He says in
his district, people
are starting to come around. Driving through rural Darlington County
Monday, Mulvaney remarked over the phone that if the president acts, it
will undermine the good faith effort many Republicans have been trying
to build back home.
In
rural and agricultural pockets of the country, the economic and moral
arguments for immigration reform are beginning to take hold. Farmers
increasingly need workers
to do jobs that many Americans aren’t willing to do. In churches,
leaders in faith communities have started pushing their congregations to
look at immigrants through a different lens and extend compassion
instead of judgment. Mulvaney believes that in time,
he has been able to convince even some of his most conservative
constituents to agree that many of the 11 million immigrants living in
the U.S. illegally, deserve a second chance to get legal status.
“People
are willing to accept the fact that the current system is broken. What
you have is effectively amnesty anyway right now,” Mulvaney says.
The
harder argument, Mulvaney notes, is getting his constituents to believe
that the president will enforce an immigration law when the
administration has already acted
without Congress before. He points to the administration’s actions on
health care. Even on immigration, Obama has moved without Congress. In
2012, Obama announced a deferred action plan to stop deporting DREAMers,
young people who had entered the country illegally
as children, but had strong ties to the U.S.
“Look,
I am trying to sell immigration reform back home,” Mulvaney says. “ I
have to deal with the trust issues though to get to immigration,”
Elected
with a broad base of Latino support, Obama is increasingly feeling the
pressure from his constituency to act unilaterally to halt deportations.
Since entering
the White House, more than 2 million immigrants have been deported on
Obama’s watch – a staggering number compared with past administrations.
The number is one protesters remind him of when they arrive in D.C.
Wednesday,
in a coordinated effort tied to Mother’s Day, a coalition of moms
affected by deportations descended on Washington to deliver 1,000
postcards, tell their stories
and implore the president to act. The increasing number of
demonstrations have even made some Democrats in the House of
Representatives, some of whom are relying on Latino voters in their
district to turn out in the 2014 midterm election, nervous.
Many are hoping the president acts if Congress cannot get a series of bills to the floor and vote before the August recess.
“Many
of us are concerned about the number of deportations that have been
taking place,” says Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y. “I think the president
is as frustrated as we
are on the lack of movement. We also believe that if you can help the
DREAMers, you can help their parents.”
Democrats believe that now is the time.
“The
whole country has waited a long time for Republicans to pass
comprehensive immigration reform and I think the nation expects the
president to also act,” says Rep.
Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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