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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Friday, October 31, 2014

GOP Not Budging on Executive Action

Politico
By Seung Min Kim
October 30, 2014

In case President Barack Obama forgot, congressional Republicans really – really — don’t want him to take executive action on immigration, like he has promised.

Three GOP senators stressed that point again on Thursday, when Arizona Sen. John McCain, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio warned Obama that sweeping unilateral action would be “detrimental” to a more permanent fix to the immigration system.
 
Obama is poised to issue a directive sometime before the end of the year that’s expected to ease deportations for potentially millions of immigrants here illegally. He had pledged to do so after House Republicans failed to take up a legislative overhaul this year.

In a letter sent Thursday to the White House, McCain, Graham and Rubio said they “strongly urge” Obama against an executive order and that immigrants here illegally should not be given legal status until the southern border is secured and immigration laws are being enforced. They also questioned whether Obama had the legal authority to take such a wide-scale executive action.
 
“In this regard, acting by executive order on an issue of this magnitude would be the most divisive action you could take – completely undermining any good-faith effort to meaningfully address this important issue, which would be a disservice to the needs of the American people,” the three senators wrote.
 
McCain, Rubio and Graham were three GOP members of the so-called Gang of Eight that co-authored the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill. A fourth Republican senator involved in those efforts, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, did not sign on.
 
The Republicans’ message came after three key House Democrats penned an op-ed earlier Thursday, where they laid out their rationale for why Obama has the legal authority to act on his own on immigration.
 
For instance, Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush took executive action through the so-called “Family Fairness” program to protect spouses and children of immigrants granted legal status under a 1986 law, wrote the lawmakers – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).
 
“The fact is, just as presidents before him, President Obama has broad authority to make our immigration system better meet the needs of our country and reflect our shared values,” the Democrats wrote. “And every administration since President Dwight D. Eisenhower has used executive authority to do just that.”

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