New York Times
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Julia Preston
June 30, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday he would use his executive power to make potentially sweeping changes to the nation’s immigration system without Congress, acknowledging the death of his more than yearlong effort to enact compromise legislation granting legal status to 11 million immigrants here illegally.
Mr. Obama said he had ordered a shift of immigration enforcement resources from the interior of the country toward the southern border, and was asking his team to report back to him by the end of the summer on additional actions he could take. The actions could be as far-reaching as giving work permits and protection from deportation to millions of immigrants now in the country.
Mr. Obama angrily blamed congressional Republicans for the collapse of the legislative effort.
“While I will continue to push House Republicans to drop the excuses and act — and I hope their constituents will, too — America cannot wait forever for them to act,” Mr. Obama said in a statement from the Rose Garden, in which he made plain his frustration about what he called Republicans’ failure “to pass a darn bill.”
“I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress,” he added.
The White House said Mr. Obama decided to take action after Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican from Ohio, told him last week that the House would not vote on immigration legislation this year.
Mr. Obama’s Rose Garden appearance was a defiant end to a politically fraught effort, filled with near-death turns and promises of resuscitation, to reach a bipartisan deal in Congress to overhaul immigration laws. Polls show such a measure enjoys support from a lopsided majority of Americans. But while the Senate passed a bill a year ago with some Republican support, there was no urgency to follow suit in the House, where conservatives dominate and the Tea Party is ascendant. In announcing the action, Mr. Obama signaled that he is increasingly willing to act unilaterally to carry out elements of his agenda that are stalled on Capitol Hill, even as he faces Republican criticism for his use of executive power.
The move sets the stage for particularly bitter partisan rancor over immigration that could weigh heavily on the midterm elections this fall. Mr. Obama said he would quickly adopt his team’s end-of-summer recommendations for executive actions, meaning he could move on the issue only weeks before the November balloting.
At the same time, Mr. Obama’s latest move came as he was facing twin pressures, both from immigrant advocates who say he has done too little on the issue, and from Republicans who blame his policies for a recent illegal surge of Central American migrants — many of them unaccompanied children — across the South Texas border.
Republicans blamed the president for the death of the immigration legislation. “The crisis at our southern border reminds us all of the critical importance of fixing our broken immigration system,” Mr. Boehner said. “It is sad and disappointing that, faced with this challenge, President Obama won’t work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can’t and won’t fix these problems.”
Mr. Obama moved in 2012 to give work permits and temporary protection from deportation to young unauthorized immigrants who came as children. More than 550,000 youths received two-year deportation deferrals, and they are now renewing them for another two years.
Since then, the president has considered broader executive actions that would reduce the number of deportations — including offering the same protections and work permits to other categories of unauthorized immigrants — but his team had delayed taking them to avoid interfering with potential congressional action.
In a nearly hourlong meeting with immigration advocates before his announcement, Mr. Obama made it clear he considered that wait over, and was weighing the full range of options legally at his disposal, attendees said.
“He said, ‘I recognize the heroic effort we’ve all made to push for legislation is dead for the year, and that means it’s time for us to tee up executive actions that will do what we can,’ ” said Frank Sharry of the advocacy group America’s Voice, who attended the session. “I’m surprised and pleased. He recognized that legislation has been blocked by Republicans, and that there’s no sense in engaging in wishful thinking.”
Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, a Democrat from Illinois who is one of the most outspoken supporters of legislation with a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally, and who has been critical of Mr. Obama for his deportations record, praised the president on Monday.
“The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something, and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do,” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “This is the president I voted for.”
Just hours before his announcement, Mr. Obama wrote to congressional leaders saying he would soon request emergency funding — expected to top $2 billion — to address the Southwestern influx as well as additional authority for the Department of Homeland Security to speed the return of the unaccompanied children to their countries of origin. That move set off outrage among some immigrant and refugee advocates who said it would further endanger vulnerable children fleeing violence in their home countries.
“This is like a fireman showing up at a burning house and locking the doors,” said Kevin Appleby, the director of policy, migration and refugee services at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He called the president’s proposed changes to border policy “inhumane.”
Republicans have seized on the Central American surge as a cudgel to criticize the president’s approach on immigration, and said further executive orders would invite legal action.
“If the president insists on enacting amnesty by executive order,” said Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who has been among the most active in opposing overhaul legislation in the House, “he will undoubtedly face a lawsuit and will find himself, once again, on the wrong side of the Constitution and the law.”
The Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, in McAllen, Tex., on Monday after visiting a Border Patrol station crowded with recently apprehended migrants, said 150 Border Patrol agents would be moved immediately from other parts of the country to the Rio Grande Valley. He said other Homeland Security officers and Justice Department officials, including immigration judges, were also being reassigned.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
Mr. Obama said he had ordered a shift of immigration enforcement resources from the interior of the country toward the southern border, and was asking his team to report back to him by the end of the summer on additional actions he could take. The actions could be as far-reaching as giving work permits and protection from deportation to millions of immigrants now in the country.
Mr. Obama angrily blamed congressional Republicans for the collapse of the legislative effort.
“While I will continue to push House Republicans to drop the excuses and act — and I hope their constituents will, too — America cannot wait forever for them to act,” Mr. Obama said in a statement from the Rose Garden, in which he made plain his frustration about what he called Republicans’ failure “to pass a darn bill.”
“I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress,” he added.
The White House said Mr. Obama decided to take action after Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican from Ohio, told him last week that the House would not vote on immigration legislation this year.
Mr. Obama’s Rose Garden appearance was a defiant end to a politically fraught effort, filled with near-death turns and promises of resuscitation, to reach a bipartisan deal in Congress to overhaul immigration laws. Polls show such a measure enjoys support from a lopsided majority of Americans. But while the Senate passed a bill a year ago with some Republican support, there was no urgency to follow suit in the House, where conservatives dominate and the Tea Party is ascendant. In announcing the action, Mr. Obama signaled that he is increasingly willing to act unilaterally to carry out elements of his agenda that are stalled on Capitol Hill, even as he faces Republican criticism for his use of executive power.
The move sets the stage for particularly bitter partisan rancor over immigration that could weigh heavily on the midterm elections this fall. Mr. Obama said he would quickly adopt his team’s end-of-summer recommendations for executive actions, meaning he could move on the issue only weeks before the November balloting.
At the same time, Mr. Obama’s latest move came as he was facing twin pressures, both from immigrant advocates who say he has done too little on the issue, and from Republicans who blame his policies for a recent illegal surge of Central American migrants — many of them unaccompanied children — across the South Texas border.
Republicans blamed the president for the death of the immigration legislation. “The crisis at our southern border reminds us all of the critical importance of fixing our broken immigration system,” Mr. Boehner said. “It is sad and disappointing that, faced with this challenge, President Obama won’t work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can’t and won’t fix these problems.”
Mr. Obama moved in 2012 to give work permits and temporary protection from deportation to young unauthorized immigrants who came as children. More than 550,000 youths received two-year deportation deferrals, and they are now renewing them for another two years.
Since then, the president has considered broader executive actions that would reduce the number of deportations — including offering the same protections and work permits to other categories of unauthorized immigrants — but his team had delayed taking them to avoid interfering with potential congressional action.
In a nearly hourlong meeting with immigration advocates before his announcement, Mr. Obama made it clear he considered that wait over, and was weighing the full range of options legally at his disposal, attendees said.
“He said, ‘I recognize the heroic effort we’ve all made to push for legislation is dead for the year, and that means it’s time for us to tee up executive actions that will do what we can,’ ” said Frank Sharry of the advocacy group America’s Voice, who attended the session. “I’m surprised and pleased. He recognized that legislation has been blocked by Republicans, and that there’s no sense in engaging in wishful thinking.”
Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, a Democrat from Illinois who is one of the most outspoken supporters of legislation with a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally, and who has been critical of Mr. Obama for his deportations record, praised the president on Monday.
“The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something, and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do,” Mr. Gutiérrez said. “This is the president I voted for.”
Just hours before his announcement, Mr. Obama wrote to congressional leaders saying he would soon request emergency funding — expected to top $2 billion — to address the Southwestern influx as well as additional authority for the Department of Homeland Security to speed the return of the unaccompanied children to their countries of origin. That move set off outrage among some immigrant and refugee advocates who said it would further endanger vulnerable children fleeing violence in their home countries.
“This is like a fireman showing up at a burning house and locking the doors,” said Kevin Appleby, the director of policy, migration and refugee services at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He called the president’s proposed changes to border policy “inhumane.”
Republicans have seized on the Central American surge as a cudgel to criticize the president’s approach on immigration, and said further executive orders would invite legal action.
“If the president insists on enacting amnesty by executive order,” said Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who has been among the most active in opposing overhaul legislation in the House, “he will undoubtedly face a lawsuit and will find himself, once again, on the wrong side of the Constitution and the law.”
The Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, in McAllen, Tex., on Monday after visiting a Border Patrol station crowded with recently apprehended migrants, said 150 Border Patrol agents would be moved immediately from other parts of the country to the Rio Grande Valley. He said other Homeland Security officers and Justice Department officials, including immigration judges, were also being reassigned.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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