Mediaboss Marketing

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.

Visit link:
Immigration isn't impeachable offense

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

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

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.

More here:
IMMIGRATION FIGHT GOP mulls options to stop Obama from acting alone

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

Read more:
Voters want immigration reform? Not after this election.

Obama will try to pass immigration reform through with congress or without whether majorit
Subscribe . . . Research Associate, Center for American Progress, Patrick Oakford tells Bill Press that he is optimistic that congress will pass a comprehens...

By: lazkopat

Read the original here:
Obama will try to pass immigration reform through with congress or without whether majorit - Video