Time
By Alex Altman
November 11, 2014
President Barack Obama has remained resolute in his
plan to unilaterally reshape U.S. immigration law in the wake of his
party’s heavy losses in last week’s midterm elections, but pressure is
mounting from both sides as he approaches a
decision later this year.
The White House has been tight-lipped about when
Obama will use his executive authority on immigration, as well as what
exactly the package of reforms will contain. But immigration activists
say they still expect the President to issue
orders that would protect up to several million undocumented immigrants
from deportation. The move could come in mid-December, after lawmakers
reach a spending agreement that would keep the federal government
running, activists say.
The Democratic drubbing on Nov. 4 unleashed a fresh
wave of threats from Republicans, who warned Obama that taking
unilateral action on immigration would “poison the well,” as House
Speaker John Boehner put it. “When you play with matches,
you take the risk of burning yourself,” Boehner cautioned at a
post-election press conference last week. “And he’s going to burn
himself if he continues to go down this path.”
But Obama has shown no signs of heeding the advice.
On multiple occasions since the election, he has vowed to stay the
course. “I’m going to do what I can do through executive action,” Obama
said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation.
Obama’s determination has heartened some
immigration advocates, who reacted angrily when the President made the
political calculation to postpone the move until after the midterms. “It
just seems like Obama, contra to the reputation he’s
picked up of going all wobbly when things get intense, is ready to go
forward,” says Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-reform group
America’s Voice. “People wouldn’t expect Obama to respond to the
election by closing his fist and taking some swings,
but that seems to be what he’s doing.”
The pressure on Obama to delay executive action is
likely to build. Republican leaders say that skirting Congress to go it
alone would ignite a controversy that jeopardizes the chances for
cooperation between the President and the new GOP
Congressional majority on a host of issues. “It’s like waving a red
flag in front of a bull,” Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said.
Immigration will be a touchstone in confirmation hearings for Loretta
Lynch, Obama’s pick for attorney general. Tea
Party conservatives in the Senate signaled they plan to use the
hearings to press Lynch on her views of the President’s executive
authority on immigration.
Enacting sweeping changes to immigration law just
weeks after the party was rebuked by voters at the polls could spark a
blowback from voters. In one recent survey, conducted by Republican
pollster Kellyanne Conway, 74% of respondents said
they preferred Obama to work with Congress to retool a broken
immigration system rather than maneuvering around the legislative
branch.
Even some seasoned Democrats seem a bit skittish
about the idea. Over a sea bass lunch Friday with Congressional leaders
in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, Obama told Boehner
that his patience in waiting for the House to
act on immigration had run out. At that point, according to a source
familiar with the meeting, Vice President Joe Biden piped up to ask how
long Republicans would need to craft immigration legislation—prompting
the President to shoot Biden a look that closed
the discussion.
Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and
erstwhile head of the Democratic National Committee, told reporters last
week that one way to avoid inflaming Obama’s antagonists was for the
President to publicly outline the terms of the
immigration order in the coming weeks, but wait until “April or June”
to issue it, giving the GOP time to cobble together a bill.
Many Republicans are eager to address immigration
in order to help repair their relationship with Hispanic voters, who
will once again play a key role in the 2016 presidential election. But
“it is not going to be at the top of the list”
for the new Republican majority, acknowledged former Mississippi
governor and Republican National Committee chair Haley Barbour, a
supporter of immigration reform, on a conference call arranged by the
Bipartisan Policy Center. Indeed, there is no evidence
that the prevailing GOP opposition to comprehensive immigration reform
in the House—and especially on a path to citizenship, about which
Democrats are insistent—has softened.
It would take about six months for Administration
officials to implement orders that could include work authorization and
protections from deportation for three or four million people, along
with changes to programs such as Secure Communities,
a Department of Homeland Security program introduced under President
George W. Bush that dictates how immigration officials enforce the law.
Such a move would mark a dramatic shift for a
President who was careful not to inject himself into lengthy partisan
wrangling over legislative specifics, then made a futile attempt to
protect embattled Democrats this fall by sidestepping
a political fight. This time he seems ready to pick one. “He waited
until after the election to try to take it out of the political milieu,”
Rendell said. “But he’s gotta do it.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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