Yesterday, administration officials leaked that Obama still intends to go ahead with executive action on immigration, and may roll out his order as soon as next week:
One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away. That part of Mr. Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people.
All in all, the NYT reports, up to five million undocumented immigrants could be protected from deportation. Waldman sees the logic behind the plan:
What’s significant about that isn’t just that it covers millions of people, but where the focus is: keeping families together.
Obama could have gone farther and extended protection to people without children who had been here a certain length of time, but it’s no surprise that he would want to lead with changes to the immigration system that stand a strong chance of getting wide support among the public. Nobody likes to see families broken up, and if you’re looking for a sympathetic face of undocumented immigration, you can’t do much better than an American kid who is terrified that his parents will be deported.
Needless to say, Republicans are apoplectic. John Boehner is considering tacking immigration onto his proposed lawsuit against Obama, and yesterday’s revelation gave several of the GOP’s 2016 hopefuls the opportunity to slam the president on this issue once again:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is calling the plan a “terrible idea,” warning it would badly damage any possibility of compromise on immigration legislation. “As someone who supports immigration reform, that wants to see us achieve something, I believe it will set us back. I believe it will make it harder for us to achieve the sorts of reforms our country needs,” Rubio told reporters on Thursday. “It will be deeply divisive. I’ve been saying that for months, and I’m glad others are beginning to say the same thing because it’s true. If he takes executive action, I believe it will make it harder, even impossible in the short term, to achieve what we’re trying to achieve in immigration reform.”
Mataconis believes “the President’s current position is politically unrealistic if the he really wants Congress to pass an immigration reform bill”:
Whether he likes it or not, the bill that passed the Senate is dead. It probably would not have passed the House in any case, but it most certainly would not pass during a lame duck session. More importantly, it would not pass the new Senate that will take office in January. Rather than setting up a confrontation based on a bill that will be dead once the current Congress ceases to exist, the answer will be to start over in a new Congress. Which means that the new bill will have to be something that can pass both the House and the new Senate. That is a political reality that the President doesn’t seem to recognize. Of course, that assumes that he is making this threat because he wants to see Congress act. I don’t think he does. I think that, like every other Democrat, he wants to keep the immigration unresolved so that his party can continue to exploit it to appeal to Latino voters.
Continetti suggests how Congressional Republicans should strike back:
Boehner and McConnell can announce a simple rule: No immigration reform if Obama commits such a brazen and unconstitutional act. No piecemeal bills. One bill: border security legislation authorizing the construction of an actual wall (call it infrastructure spending) and making E-Verify compulsory. Such measures do not preclude legalizing the population of illegal immigrants. They are prerequisites for it. They are not anti-immigrant. They are anti-illegal immigrant. They are not part of the corporate agenda of comprehensive reform, fast-track authority, and corporate tax cuts. They are part of a middle class agenda of family tax relief, sound money, and replacing Obamacare. Nor is that a weakness. It’s a strength.
Allahpundit has another idea:
Boehner and McConnell call a press conference flanked by Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Paul Ryan. If any Republican governors eyeing 2016 want to attend too, they’re invited — Christie, Walker, Jindal, Jeb Bush, whoever. At the presser, B&M make a short statement: The GOP intends to challenge Obama’s amnesty in court as an unconstitutional infringement on separation of powers. If, however, they lose that suit, they’ll encourage any Republican successor to O to use the amnesty precedent in other areas of policy, starting with tax reform. … The point, obviously, is that the practice of dubious executive power grabs at Congress’s expense can work for both parties. And will.
But Cillizza figures Obama is just past caring at this point:
No matter what congressional response McConnell and Boehner craft — and they are undoubtedly looking at their options right now — the most obvious and predictable outcome of Obama’s move on immigration is that any hope of bipartisanship on much of anything in the 114th Congress is probably now out of the question. Obama knows that. And it would seem he doesn’t care. Or rather, he has made the calculation that the chances of genuine bipartisanship on virtually anything was so low in the first place that it didn’t make sense to not do what he believes is the right thing.
I urge the president to delay his executive order on immigration here.
The Dish 