Obama to use executive action on immigration?
Immigration champion Rep. Luis Gutierrez feels confident that President Barack Obama will use his executive powers to push through reform. House Speaker John Boehner feels confident that doing so will tank what little support the President has among Republicans on immigration reform.
They're both right, immigration law experts say.
After pushback from immigration activists and some members of his party, the President has directed his administration to reexamine its deportation policy.
The administration could shift noncriminals and minor offenders to the lowest deportation priorities.
"I think the President has a difficult decision to make here," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University Law School. "The courts have upheld wide discretion on immigration matters ... he could make noncriminals the lowest deportation priorities. ... But there is a penalty he could pay through using executive action rather than waiting for Congress to act on immigration reform."
That political price, Boehner told Fox News last week, is "that will make it almost impossible to ever do immigration reform, because he will spoil the well to the point where no one will trust him by giving him a new law that he will implement the way the Congress intended."
"The American people want us to deal with immigration reform," Boehner said on Fox News' "Kelly File" during the same interview. "... But every time the President ignores the law, like the 38 times he has on Obamacare, our members look up and go, 'Wait a minute: You can't have immigration reform without strong border security and internal enforcement, how can we trust the President to actually obey the law and enforce the law that we would write?' "
Legislation stuck in the House
Last year, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform package -- which includes a citizenship path for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country -- with scant Republican support. But that legislation has been stymied in the Republican-controlled House as lawmakers there hammer out more incremental approaches to such things as a path to legalization.
In the meantime, Obama has faced increasing pressure from immigration activists and members of his own party to use the power of his pen to help stem the high number of deportations that have occurred during his administration. Under this president, there have been roughly 2 million deportations, a number that far exceeds that of previous administrations and led the head of the National Council of La Raza to dub him "the deporter in chief."
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