There is an idiom that parents and employers likely put in practice when
an important task has to be completed correctly; “If you want something
done right, you have to do it yourself.” President Obama certainly
understands that sentiment with a slight variation; if the nation wants
anything done at all, the President has to do it himself due to repugicans who have done nothing since January 2009.
Sometime next week, after waiting patiently for Ted
Cruz to order House repugicans to take up, and pass, the Senate’s
bipartisan immigration reform, the President will take action on
immigration reform. The President’s patience has been rewarded with repugican refusal to act despite overwhelming public support, so he
will order a far-reaching overhaul of the immigration enforcement system
that will protect at least five million undocumented immigrants from
the threat of summary deportation.
The President has authority to enforce federal laws
with discretion and his order will refocus the activities of immigration
agents, including allowing many parents of American citizens or legal
residents to obtain legal work documents to end the terror of being
separated from their families and thrown out of “the shining city on a
hill.” That part of the plan could affect 3.3 million people, but they
have to have lived in America for at least five years according to
analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. The plan also may include a
much stricter policy to limit benefits to immigrants who have lived in
America for at least ten years affecting approximately 2.5 million
people.
The President is also considering extending
protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United
States as children, and to their parents, that could affect an
additional one million people. There is also a possibility of protecting
undocumented farm workers who have entered the country illegally, but
have helped feed Americans for decades working in the agriculture
industry.
Included in the enforcement overhaul are expanded
opportunities for legal immigrants who have high-tech skills, and shifts
extra security resources to the nation’s southern border. A new
memorandum will direct immigration enforcement officials, border agents,
and immigration judges to continue deportations for convicted
criminals, foreigners who pose national security risks, and recent
border crossers; Central American children are shielded under the shrub law providing them with due process prior to being thrown out
of America.
The President has overwhelming support from
pro-immigration groups, Hispanics, 62% of Americans, and advocates who
expect the President to take bold action after years of frustration, and
seeing the wide-ranging Senate bipartisan immigration bill fall victim
to Ted Cruz-repugicans in the House last year. In fact, a recent poll
found that even 4 out of 5 repugicans, or 78%, support the President’s
“stepped approach” to immigration reform their xenophobic Congress
refuses to consider. The President has called for, and pledged to act
on, immigration reform for six years, and clearly his patient reliance
on white obstructionists doing anything whatsoever is at an end. The
director of migration policy at the United States coven of catholic bishops, Kevin Appleby, said “This is his last chance to make good on
his promise to fix the system. If he delays again, immigration activists
would jump the White House fence.” However, the USccb most certainly
have ulterior motives for supporting immigration reform founded on
documenting more catholics; but at this juncture their support is
welcomed regardless their theocratic reasons. Clearly, any Presidential
executive action is necessary because Obama, like most Americans, knows repugican do-nothings have no intention to act on much-needed
immigration reform; unless it means mobilizing the U.S. military, armed
white militias, and weaponized drones at the Southern border in an act
of war against, most recently, Central American immigrant children.
The repugicans in Congress have already levied a rash
of threats against the President for doing the job they refuse; work for
the good of the people and the nation. In the Senate, a group of
extremist teabaggers led by Texas Ted Cruz with Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions
of Alabama in tow are already planning to thwart any executive action on
immigration. The obstruction-minded fascists intend on rallying their repugican cabal to block passage of a budget next month unless it
contains a measure abolishing President Obama’s executive authority to
act on immigration. Teabagger Mike Lee said “I think it’s very important
for us to do what we can to prevent it (executive action and
immigration reform),” and it includes, at least, shutting down the
government; a prospect Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have proposed to
abolish President Obama’s authority to use executive actions on
anything.
In the House, John Boehner warned
the President that if he exercised his executive authority on
immigration, repugicans would “fight the President tooth and nail. He
also warned the President that repugicans would sue him for using
executive authority as the said promised over the Affordable Care Act.
Boehner also refused to rule out shutting down the government if the
President dared to be President. Boehner said, “We are looking at all
options, and they’re on the table.”
What irks repugicans to no end is that the primary
features of President Obama’s plan are founded on longstanding legal
precedents granting the executive branch the right to exercise
“prosecutorial discretion” in how it enforces laws. In fact, it is
precisely those precedents that informed the President’s decision in
2012 to protect children who were brought to America by their parents
through no fault of their own, and “dream” of being “legal citizens;”
they are, for all intents and purposes Americans. The repugicans, and their
white xenophobic base, want them and likely all Hispanics, deported
with prejudice whether they are undocumented or not.
The repugicans have had six years under President
Obama, and eight years under the shrub to reform immigration policy, but they
have adhered closely to their agenda of doing nothing positive for the
people or the nation; particularly since 2008. Their only action over
the past four years is taking any and everything from the people and
handing it all to the rich. President Obama has exercised nothing but
patience in waiting for repugicans to act on immigration reform, and as
he said shortly after the midterms, “Before the end of the year, we’re
going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take to improve the
functioning of our immigration system. What I’m not going to do is just
wait.” Throughout this President’s tenure, with obstructionist repugicans in Congress, anything that has needed to be done he has had
to do himself. It is why repugicans seriously need to put in practice
what they claim America’s poverty-wage workforce needs to do; learn the
value and culture of work.
