White House Braces for Impeachment Threat After Immigration Action

U.S. News & World Report

By Lauren Fox

July 25, 2014

White House Braces for Impeachment Threat After Immigration Action 

As more than 57,000 unaccompanied children stream across the southern border, President Barack Obama is keeping his eye on a broad swath of executive actions that may provide deportation relief for more immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

White House aide Dan Pfeiffer says Obama is preparing to unveil his actions by the end of the summer and is poised to accept the political consequences, even if the fallout results in impeachment action by House Republicans.

“I think it will probably increase the angry action from Republicans,” Pfeiffer said during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Friday morning in Washington. “The president acting on immigration reform will certainly up the likelihood that they would contemplate impeachment at some point.”

While House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has repeatedly quelled calls within his GOP conference to impeach Obama, he is moving forward with a lawsuit accusing the president of not enforcing the health care law.

Democrats have used the impeachment calls by GOP activists like Sarah Palin as a way to raise money and gin up their base ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

“We talk about the lawsuit and then you have Sarah Palin talking about impeachment,” Pfeiffer says. “A lot of people in this town laugh that off. I would not discount that possibility.”

A CNN poll released Friday shows that while 65 percent of Americans are opposed to impeaching Obama, a majority of Republicans – 57 percent – support the idea.

Pfeiffer declined to provide specifics about how far-reaching the president’s executive actions on immigration may be, but Obama has hinted before that an executive action on immigration would be expansive and address what “Congress refuses to do.” It has been more than a year since the Senate passed a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill, and the House has yet to pass its own plan for immigration reform.

Action by Obama on immigration might mobilize some in the Democratic base, but it could have other consequences for Democrats running for re-election in Republican-leaning states this year. Such a move could hurt Democrats already distancing themselves from an unpopular president in efforts to protect their seats and the Democratic majority in the Senate.

Pfeiffer insists, however, that the GOP will be in the more perilous political position if Obama does take executive action. Republicans will have to decide whether they might try to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and if they'll elect candidates opposed to sweeping reform.

“I think that this executive action will be very significant in not just its public policy impact, but I think in terms of the politics of immigration reform going forward,” Pfeiffer says.

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