Editorial:
President Barack Obama will reveal his shift in immigration enforcement on Friday the 21st. This is not to be confused with immigration policy. We don’t know all the details at the time of this editorial. Thursday evening he announced his intentions and more details would be revealed on Friday, but what we can surmise is that what President Obama will be proposing is how the Federal government will effectively enforce immigration law. We speculate that the President is set to offer a temporary reprieve from deportation to as many as 5 million additional immigrants.
Naturally any change to immigration will be vigorously opposed by the Republican Party. They have declared that the President’s executive action on immigration is beyond his authority. The answer to this question will eventually be answered in the courts. In the past, Courts have historically given the executive branch broad leeway to decide how to enforce deportation laws. In the meantime, the Republican Party will flounder and try to find ways to stalemate this action.
President Obama is taking another good step-forward on the immigration issue, albeit that it is a temporary action. But it is one more step towards comprehensive immigration reform. The frustrating part in this battle for immigration reform is that it comes at such a late date.
Immigrants across the nation are excited and feel hopeful that they can finally come out of the shadows and have the opportunity to stay united with their families under the work permit option, and rightly so. After years of promise, there is finally some concrete action taking place.
From what we have read to date, the President will focus deportation efforts on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records or those who are repeat violators of our immigration laws. In addition, the President will grant work authorization to certain classes of would-be immigrants.
What the President can’t do is grant amnesty. He cannot write the law for any immigrant to receive permanent residence or a “green card.” And there is no path to citizenship with his changes.
Whatever the President does for immigration via Executive Order is only a temporary solution and can be undone by the next administration.
The frustrating part of this much appreciated action is that it took so long in coming and that it came weeks after the mid-term elections.
It has already been determined that the Democratic Party lost Hispanic support, lost Hispanic voters, and lost elections. The Hispanic voter was disillusioned with the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. Years of promises had gone by the wayside with no action and no return on their support for the President or the Party. Hispanic voters did not feel compelled to turn out and vote at the mid-term.
President Obama shelved his administrative action on immigration until after the elections, and that was a mistake!
If this administrative action had taken place prior to the election, it would have given the Hispanic voter an incentive to vote for the President’s Party so that the Party could work toward ensuring and support this action.
Now President Obama has to take this immigration fight on with a House that is Republican controlled. That means, once again, that promises will be made but the reality will be much different in the final outcome.
In the meantime the Hispanic community will be on the outside looking in, rallying the community to pressure Congress for real and permanent immigration reform.