Why President Obama just made comprehensive immigration reform tougher
President Obama said Tuesday that contributions to the U.S. by a broad patchwork of immigrants help justify the steps he took to protect workers illegally in the country. (AP)
Before President Obama's big move on immigration, the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform in the new Congress were dim. Afterward, they're arguably even dimmer.
Obama's decision to defer deportations for more than 5 million illegal immigrants has divided the American people in half -- and even improved the president'snumbers on the immigration issue -- according to new polling from Quinnipiac University and CNN. What it also appears to have done, though,is exacerbated the real problem with getting comprehensive reform done: a very motivated opposition.
This has long been themain obstacle to comprehensive reform -- i.e. some form of legalization of illegal immigrants, plus border security -- and since the executive action, the opposition is on the rise again.
The Q pollshows support for allowing illegal immigrants to apply for citizenshipfalling to its lowest point since the survey started asking the question two years ago. Fewer than half -- 48 percent -- now support a path to citizenship, down from 57 percentone year ago.
The poll also shows that 35 percent say theseimmigrants should be required to leave (the word "deportation" is not mentioned). That's a new high, and it's up nine points from the last poll.
And here's the real kicker: The shift is almost completely among Republicans. Although they supported citizenship over deportation 43 to 38 percent in November 2013, today they support deportation/involuntary departure over citizenship, 54 to 27 percent.
That's two to one -- a stunning shift. And if it's even close to accurate, there are very few Republicans in Congress who will be eager to vote for comprehensive reform in the 114th Congress. The fear of primary challenges was already strong enough when the party was split on citizenship and deportation; now it's probably overwhelming (at least in the minds of self-preservation-minded incumbents).
The changes described above, of course, might not be only a result of what Obama did. They also could be influenced by the summer border crisis, for instance.But it's pretty logical to assume that Obama's actionspushed things in this direction (and the border crisis's effect on polling pretty well dissipated in recent months).
The CNN/Opinion Research poll tells a similar tale. Although 42 percent favored the policies that Obama announced and 46 percent opposed them, it was clear where the motivation remains: with the opposition.
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Why President Obama just made comprehensive immigration reform tougher