Archive for the ‘Immigration Reform’ Category

Dems: We Back Obama on Immigration Action

In contrast to the midterm elections, Democrats are closing ranks around President Barack Obama in anticipation of him using his presidential pen to act on immigration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was lead signatory on a letter from him and five other Senate Democrats urging Obama to act.

"Because House Republicans have not acted, we fully support your decision to use your well-established executive authority to improve as much of the immigration system as you can," the letter states.

House Democrats had sent a similar letter last week signed by 117 House Democrats.

Obama had planned to announce executive action at the end of summer but that plan has been on hold for about three months after Democratic Senate candidates became fearful the issue would hurt their campaigns. Democrats failed to keep control of the Senate anyway.

There was some expectation the president might wait until after Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's Dec. 6 election runoff against GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. A key issue in their campaign is expansion of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which has been on hold. The House voted to allow expansion to move forward and the Senate was to vote Tuesday evening.

Republicans have threatened to counter any action taken by the president with ideas floated from using the appropriations process to curb his actions to impeachment. Some Hispanic Republican activists have said the president should wait but also said the GOP needs to put up an alternative proposal.

In an interview with NBC News, Sen. Bob Menendez, who also signed the letter, said it was outrageous for Republicans to suggest Obama is "poisoning the well" for future immigration reform legislation when the House GOP failed to advance any legislation this past session. Obama refused to take any executive action during that time hoping to see the GOP House pass its own bills.

"I hope our community wakes up to the reality of who the people are that are creating obstacles," said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who signed the Senate letter supporting Obama on executive action over Republican objections.

"They are the ones that went to the community and said, "See Obama lied to you," yet they are the very ones who didn't vote for immigration reform and who oppose executive action. I hope our community wakes up to the reality of who the people are that are creating obstacles," said Menendez, who has for many months urged Obama to take bold action.

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Dems: We Back Obama on Immigration Action

Immigration isn't impeachable offense

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette is a CNN contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Follow him on Twitter: @rubennavarrette. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- Like misery, failure loves company. Look at the immigration debate and how both liberals and conservatives -- and elected officials in both parties -- bungle it.

President Barack Obama has failed on immigration policy. But now that he appears to be poised to take executive action to fix some of what's broken with the country's immigration system, Republicans in Congress sound like they're about to overreact and join him in that failure.

Conservatives love to stir their flock by pushing the narrative that Obama is a staunch supporter of "amnesty" and that the President has always been in lockstep with immigration reform advocates.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

That's fiction. It's been a rocky relationship. That's because Obama belongs to that wing of the Democratic Party that hasn't been interested in legalizing the undocumented and creating more competition in the job market for U.S. workers.

Obama broke his campaign promise to make reform a top issue and eroded trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement by expanding 100-fold the program known as Secure Communities, which ropes local police into enforcing federal immigration law. He tried to fend off critics who wanted him to slow deportations by claiming that he didn't have the power to act "as a king," only to later flip-flop and do just that during his 2012 re-election campaign when he unveiled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Obama deported a record 2 million people in five years, divided hundreds of thousands of families, failed to deal effectively with thousands of child refugees who streamed across the U.S.-Mexico border last summer and then broke another promise when he said he would take executive action on immigration before the midterm elections but blinked.

Now, according to news reports that look like a trial balloon from the White House, Obama might, as early as this week, take unilateral action to offer several million illegal immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation and perhaps even give some of them work permits.

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Immigration isn't impeachable offense

Krauthammer: Obama Exec. Amnesty ‘An Impeachable Offense’ – Video


Krauthammer: Obama Exec. Amnesty #39;An Impeachable Offense #39;
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said President Obama #39;s plan to take executive action on immigration reform that would grant amnesty to 5 million people would be "an impeachable...

By: Washington Free Beacon

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Krauthammer: Obama Exec. Amnesty 'An Impeachable Offense' - Video

IMMIGRATION FIGHT GOP mulls options to stop Obama from acting alone

House Republicans are engaged in a high-stakes internal debate and political game of dare with President Obama over immigration reform -- with the threat of another government shutdown resurfacing.

The president is expected by as early as next week to announce executive action on U.S. immigration law that would protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, change federal law-enforcement programs and expand business visas for non-citizens.

Obama made clear in the immediate aftermath of the Nov. 4 elections -- in which Republicans won control of the Senate and added to their House majority -- that he would move immediately on immigration, saying he has waited too long for the GOP House to act.

Republican leaders in turned warned Obama that taking executive action, particularly before they control the Senate next year, would be a bad idea.

House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday repeated his early warnings that Obama is playing with fire and that executive amnesty will keep immigration reform from getting enacted during his final six years in the White House and will jeopardize his other legislative priorities.

However, some of the most conservative House Republicans in recent days have raised the specter of using upcoming, must-pass spending bills to block Obama from acting.

They are considering passing a temporary spending bill into next year when Republicans control the Senate to try to see if they can use their grip on the purse strings to gain leverage over the president.

Pragmatists in the caucus are warning loudly that such an approach could result in a government shutdown because Obama would likely veto the bill.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., thinks Obama boldly announcing imminent executive action just one day after big election losses was an attempt to lure Republicans into a political trap.

A lot of people on our side think that hes intentionally trying to bait us into some sort of fight, Cole told Fox News on Friday.

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IMMIGRATION FIGHT GOP mulls options to stop Obama from acting alone

Voters want immigration reform? Not after this election.

To the editor: Earlier this month America had a midterm election. You say there is "broad voter support for [immigration] reform," according to polls but what about the election results? ("GOP must act on immigration," Editorial, Nov. 10)

Refresh my memory. Did former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) lose his seat in a GOP primary because he was or wasn't OK with amnesty for illegal immigrants? Did the Republicans win more seats in the House and take control of the Senate because they support amnesty, immigration reform and President Obama's planned executive amnesty?

Don't you think the election results spoke louder and clearer than your public opinion polls?

Carl McHenry, Yucaipa

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion

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Voters want immigration reform? Not after this election.