Obama Hopes to Score Points in Miami on Immigration

New York Times

By Julie Hirshfeld Davis

February 24, 2015

Obama Hopes to Score Points in Miami on Immigration

President Obama, thwarted by a federal court from carrying out pieces of his immigration directive and barraged daily by congressional Republicans trying to gut or defund it, is in many ways frozen in place on his attempt to wield presidential authority to reshape the immigration system.

So Mr. Obama is taking his message on the road, using a trip to Miami on Wednesday to exact a political price from Republicans for their opposition to his immigration policy and to consolidate gains he has made with Hispanics since announcing executive actions to shield millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

He plans to hold a town-hall-style meeting on immigration at Florida International University and to sit for an interview with Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network. It is a classic use of the bully pulpit — a presidential power not subject to the whims of the courts and Congress — to frame the immigration issue to his own, and his party’s, benefit.

“There is this element of accountability — about bringing people out of the shadows, making them submit to a background check and start paying taxes — that we can’t move forward on because of the judge’s ruling,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. Mr. Earnest added that Mr. Obama would answer questions during the town hall discussion about the ruling, by a federal judge in Texas, and about the “next steps in the legal process.”

“This is about the president doing what presidents are supposed to do, which is traveling across the country and talking about their priorities for the country,” Mr. Earnest said. “There is no question that one of the president’s priorities is reforming our broken immigration system.”

Before he leaves for Miami on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will huddle privately at the White House with immigration advocates to brief them on his legal and legislative strategy for pushing forward with changes even in the face of obstacles in Congress and the courts, according to people who have been invited.

The White House says Mr. Obama still plans to use his prosecutorial discretion to rearrange deportation priorities, focusing more on criminals and recent entrants to the United States than on law-abiding people who have lived in the country longer.

The trip to Miami comes as Congress is running out of time to break a logjam over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which will expire Friday unless Congress can pass a bill to continue providing money for the agency. But the House attached a provision to that bill to halt the president’s 2014 executive actions on immigration, and many Republicans are loath to remove that condition.

The trip also coincides with the first full week the Homeland Security Department had been scheduled to begin carrying out part of the program. Mr. Obama announced in November that he would shield up to five million unauthorized immigrants from deportation and provide many of them with work permits.

The court’s ruling blocked about 270,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children from applying for the new protected status — a process that was to begin last week. And after the court decision, the White House announced that it was delaying a second program, scheduled to begin in May, that would offer about four million immigrants with children who are American citizens a reprieve from deportation and a chance to work.

The administration has filed for an emergency stay of the ruling to allow both changes to take effect.

“At this point, the president’s strategy is to be as aggressive as possible on the legal side and really go out and make the case publicly of why his actions are good for the economy and good for our safety,” said Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum.

The disputes over the Homeland Security measure and in court give Mr. Obama a chance to lean on Republicans to come his way on the issue or pay the political consequences.

“There is a window of opportunity here, and the greater the pressure that’s on the Republicans, the more likelihood there is for Republicans to move,” Mr. Noorani said. “Any Republican who wants to be president or is defending a tough seat in 2016 is going to want to find a solution here.”

Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist and former top aide to Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee, said Mr. Obama had essentially abandoned any serious effort to forge a legislative compromise on immigration and was instead grappling for political advantage on an issue that continued to bedevil Republicans.

“We are right back where we started,” Mr. Madden said of Republicans. “As a party, we are once again in the position of defining ourselves based on what we are against rather than what we are for, and we continue to put ourselves in a very challenging spot with a key segment of the electorate.”

Mr. Obama is trying to exploit that dynamic with his trip to Miami, home to a sizable Hispanic population, Mr. Madden said.

After Mr. Obama announced his executive actions in November, his approval rating climbed, powered largely by a distinct jump in support from Hispanics, with whom he gained 12 points, according to a Gallup poll.

Hemmed in by Congress and the courts, the president is nonetheless working to cement those gains by reminding Hispanics of what he is trying to do.

The public “may not have liked the process,” Mr. Noorani said, “but they really liked the substance.”

While Mr. Obama makes his case, his allies are pressing ahead with plans to educate immigrants on how they can prepare to apply for the program, even as it is stalled.

A group of House Democrats led by Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez of Illinois is planning a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to announce that workshops and events will continue to be held across the country to inform people about who can apply, and how.

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