President Obama is expected to announce his executive action on immigration reform this week, promising a partisan bloodbath. Fox News is already talking about the i-word, of course:
Josh Voorhees revisits what exactly Obama’s action will probably be:
The most sweeping action the president will likely take is to extend DACA-like reprieves to particular groups of unauthorized immigrants, the largest of which will probably be parents of children who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Such a reprieve would temporarily protect them from the threat of deportation, but it wouldn’t remove that threat forever. Despite what conservatives are suggesting with their talk of “executive amnesty,” the president doesn’t have the unilateral power to make someone a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident. …
There is one group for whom Obama’s actions could have a more lasting impact:
those unauthorized immigrants whose spouses are U.S. citizens or legal residents. Most people in that group are technically eligible to apply for a green card already, but only if they first leave the country and wait out what’s typically a lengthy separation from their family. Obama could offer what is known as “parole in place” to that group, allowing them to stay in the country legally while the green card process plays out. He did a similar thing last November for undocumented individuals with immediate family members serving in the U.S. military. Anyone who has a green card in hand before the president leaves office in early 2017 wouldn’t have to worry about losing it if the next president changes course.
Outlining why Obama is moving ahead with this controversial power play, Dara Lind attributes his eagerness to the “smashing success” of DACA:
DACA beneficiaries say they’re no longer afraid to excel in school or become leaders in their communities, because they’re no longer worried that getting noticed will lead to getting deported. Advocates see the success of the DACA program as evidence that the administration has the ability to remove the threat of deportation from larger numbers of people if it really wants to. That’s why they’ve continued to push for affirmative relief, rather than being willing to rely on administration promises about passive protection of immigrants.
Unless the rumors about what Obama’s about to do are wildly wrong, it looks like the advocates’ argument has been persuasive. The White House has been convinced that if it really wants to remove the fear of deportation from unauthorized immigrant residents, it’s going to need to let them apply for relief themselves.
[D]espite Obama’s low approval ratings (especially on immigration) and Democrats’ “(butt-)whuppin‘” in the midterm elections, he has something on his side: Public support for allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country. The 2014 national exit poll found 57 percent of midterm voters say most illegal immigrants working in the United States should be offered a chance to apply for legal status. Just less than four in 10 support deportation instead. And majority support on this issue isn’t all that surprising given national polling in recent years.
But Ian Gordon points out one thing Obama’s action apparently won’t address:
Still, given this year’s border crisis, it’s notable that the president’s plan seems to make little to no mention of the folks who provoked it: the unaccompanied children and so-called “family units” (often mothers traveling with small kids) who came in huge numbers from Central America and claimed, in many cases, to be fleeing violence of some sort.
The administration has been particularly adamant about fast-tracking the deportation of those family unit apprehensions, whose numbers jumped from 14,855 in fiscal 2013 to 68,445 in fiscal 2014, a 361 percent increase. Meanwhile, ICE has renewed the controversial practice of family detention (a complaint has already been filed regarding sexual abuse in the new Karnes City, Texas, facility) and will soon open the largest immigration detention facility in the country, a 2,400-bed family center in Dilley, Texas—just as Obama starts rolling out what many immigration hardliners will no doubt attack as an unconstitutional amnesty.
Tomasky, brimming with righteous indignation, claims that the Senate immigration bill “could have passed the House of Representatives, and probably easily, at any time since the Senate passed it in June 2013”, if not for Boehner’s decision never to let it come to a vote:
It’s been 16 months, nearly 500 days, since the Senate passed the bill. The House could have passed it on any one of those days. But Boehner and the Republicans refused, completely out of cowardice and to spite Obama. Insanely irresponsible. And on top of that, Boehner told Obama in June that he was not going to allow a vote on it all year. In other words, the Speaker told the President (both of whom knew the bill had the votes) that he was not only going to refuse to have a vote, but that he was going to let the Senate bill die. And now, when Obama wants to try to do something about the issue that’s actually far, far more modest than the bill would have been, he’s the irresponsible one? It’s grounds for impeachment?
Still, Danny Vinik worries about the consequences if Obama and the Democrats take the low road to immigration reform:
The president’s supporters argue that it’s the Republicans who have violated democratic norms, by refusing to even allow a bipartisan immigration bill that passed in the Senate to come to a vote in the House. It’s also unlikely that a move on immigration would set a precedent for future Republican presidents to undermine laws that Democrats support. I haven’t been able to imagine a comparable scenario where a Republican would have considerable legal authority to make a unilateral policy change. Immigration is a unique issue.
Still, Democrats could also lose some of their ability to claim the moral high ground on such issues. And that could matter very soon, because some Republicans are so angry about a potential immigration order they are considering using a government funding bill to block it, possibly setting up another shutdown.
Brian Beutler contemplates the Republican response:
There are three tools Republicans can use to stop Obama, but toxic Republican politics preclude the only one—a pledge to vote on comprehensive reform—that would actually work. That leaves the spending and impeachment powers. If, like Boehner, Republican hardliners truly believe the president is preparing to violate his oath of office, and an appropriations fight won’t stop him, then suddenly Krauthammer’s option becomes the last arrow in their quiver.
It won’t succeed either. But Boehner knows that this is where many of his members’ minds are already starting to wander. It’s why he’s once again floating the possibility of suing Obama instead.
Rachel Roubein also previews the Republican response:
If Obama announces his executive order next Friday at noon, the House could stay in session for as long as needed rather than beginning the planned Thanksgiving recess. The chamber could pass a resolution rejecting the president’s actions. Then House Republicans would focus on appropriations.
The current funding bill is set to sunset Dec. 11, and lawmakers are jockeying over passing another short-term continuing resolution or a longer-term package. The House could attach a rider prohibiting enforcement of Obama’s order, or it could not provide money to departments that would respond to executive action.
Lastly, Francis Wilkinson wants to know just what Obama’s opponents propose as an alternative:
There are, after all, a finite number of answers to the question of what to do about millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.:
1. You can offer them a path to legalization and/or citizenship.
2. You can deport them.
3. You can maintain the status quo, in which the undocumented remain in the U.S. without legal rights or recognition (and perhaps “self deport” in accord with the wishes of Mitt Romney). …
[Senator Jeff] Sessions, who along with Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas represents the hard end of anti-immigrant views in the Senate, shrinks from saying he supports deportation. He loudly condemns the status quo. And he’s virulently opposed to amnesty.
The Dish 