Bloomberg
By Margaret Talev
November 21, 2014
“Passions
may fly on immigration,” candidate Barack Obama said when he accepted
the Democratic Party's nomination for president in August 2008. “But I
don't know anyone who benefits when a
mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts
American wages by hiring illegal workers.”
Obama,
the son of an American woman and a Kenyan man who came to the U.S.
legally to study, has been promising to get something big done on
immigration since he first ran for president. Time
and again, he said legal recognition and a path to citizenship were
needed to address the nation's roughly 12 million undocumented
residents. Neither he nor the Latino voters and immigration advocates
who put their faith in him—and later turned their frustrations
on him—planned on it taking this long. They also didn't foresee a
solution that bypasses Congress with executive actions that can be
reversed by a future president.
Still,
Obama's decision to use his sole power to reset the legal status and
reshape the fortunes of about 5 million people—while setting off a
political firestorm—is likely to stand as the
last major piece of his domestic political legacy, ranked beside
Obamacare, climate-change initiatives, the economic stimulus and
broadening recognition of gay rights. In order for the protections he's
extending to undocumented residents to last, Obama is
banking on Hillary Clinton or another Democrat being elected president
in 2016, or the prospect that a Republican simply can't run for the
White House on a promise to repeal the order and win.
“He'll always be remembered as someone who really cared and really delivered.”
“For
more than 200 years, our tradition of welcoming immigrants from around
the world has given us a tremendous advantage over other nations,” Obama
said. “It’s kept us youthful, dynamic,
and entrepreneurial. It has shaped our character as a people with
limitless possibilities–people not trapped by our past, but able to
remake ourselves as we choose.”
The
memorandums the president is expected to sign Friday will defer
deportation for people who came to the U.S. as children and for parents
of children who are citizens or legal permanent residents, provided they meet certain requirements. The changes
wouldn't give these people, primarily from Mexico and Central America,
an easier path to citizenship. The administration also says it will
streamline the visa process for foreign workers and their
employers and provide more options for foreign entrepreneurs, according
to a fact sheet released by the White House. Obama will also tighten
border security and expand a training program that allows foreign
citizens who earn U.S. degrees in science, technology,
engineering and math to work in this country for up to 29 months.
“To
those members of Congress who question my authority to make our
immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting
where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a
bill,” Obama said.
The
president's decision to act unilaterally infuriated Republicans, who
argue he should have waited until the new Congress arrives in January,
when they will control both chambers, and that
they would finally be in a position to act. Obama saw things
differently; this was the last card he had to play before running out of
time to both announce the new programs and implement them.
“Oh,
gosh, yeah,” said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of the immigration
advocacy group America's Voice. “What more could he have done? He gave
them all the time in the world.” Now, she said,
“it'll be hard for Republicans to get elected running on a platform of
trying to repeal this. That would become a huge flashpoint.”
As
the president prepared to deliver his address to the nation on Thursday
night, Eliseo Medina, a Mexican-American labor and immigration rights
leader, was making his way to Las Vegas, where
Obama will promote his new policy on Friday. “It's huge,” said Medina,
the former secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International
Union, who remembered talking about immigration with Obama in 2007 in
the early days of his candidacy. Back then, Medina
said, “I got the very distinct impression that here was a man who
really cared and that it was much more than somebody that was looking
for votes.”
For
awhile, Medina said, that faith became “wobbly” and advocates asked
themselves: “Is he just another politician who wanted our votes?” The
Latino community was kept waiting as the president
deported a record number of undocumented residents. That didn't
reassure prospective Republican legislative partners that he's serious
about security issues—and it did earn him the derisive nickname of
“deporter-in-chief” from frustrated immigration advocates.
They were also left hanging as the White House went silent after Senate
passage of a bipartisan measure in the spring of 2013. Obama's goal was
to give House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, room to build a
consensus for a bill within his own caucus.
As time passed, it became clear the reverse had happened; House
Republicans grew even more averse to acting on the issue.
“It
was always the same thing, that he wanted to get things done. But there
was always the politics of the moment. The budget, the deficit
reduction, the foreclosures, the health care, there
was all this stuff. All of these years of delay and obstruction from
the Republicans. When the Senate bill passed, he felt very optimistic,”
Medina recalled of Obama in 2013. “But it didn't go anywhere. Over time
it became very clear there's no intention from
the Republicans to act.”
Medina
has concerns about the path Obama has chosen. “Obviously it is
short-term and we said from day one that the problem is it's temporary
and the next president can undo it with the stroke
of a pen, and that it does not lead to citizenship and full integration
into society, and that it would not be as expansive as we need it to
be,” Medina said. Even so, it's a “major step forward” and “he'll always
be remembered as someone who really cared
and really delivered.”
Even
as Republicans push back against Obama's move, they already are
recognizing that he has put them in a political box. This frustrates
Hector Barreto, president of Hispanic Business Roundtable
Institute and former U.S. Small Business Administrator under President
George W. Bush, to no end. Obama never prioritized this in his first two
years of office when Democrats controlled Congress and didn't lay the
groundwork for legislation afterward in the
way other presidents have when they're serious about passing a bill, he
said. Doing this now, Barreto said, is overtly political and
counterproductive and puts immigrants even more in the crosshairs of the
fight while giving them a false sense of protection.
He also eschews comparisons between Obama's order and those of
Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, saying those were
predicated on legislation. Barreto sounds it out slowly to make the
point: “Leg-is-lation.”
Once
done bashing Obama, Barreto issues another warning: “If Republicans go
into the new Congress and don't ever take up any immigration reform,
then they have nobody to blame” for the consequences
but themselves. Republican governors who are gathered in Florida for an
annual conference saw their own agenda largely overtaken by Obama's
move this week, and some have accused the president of planning his
timing as a distraction. (White House aides said
the president finalized plans for the substance and timing of his order
after returning last week from a trip to Asia.)
Yet
even as the governors threatened legal action and debated the
boundaries of separation of powers, their comments reflected a new
political reality. “It is clear that he's overreaching,”
said Louisiana's Bobby Jindal. “He shouldn't be doing this executive
order.” Still, Jindal said immigration must be addressed, and with
sensitivity. “These are human beings,” he said. Ohio's John Kasich said
Obama is making a mistake; the governor also said
he would be open to considering a legal path to citizenship through
legislation if he were still in Congress, depending on the details.
Kasich said his thinking on this has “evolved” over time, and without
getting into details of what he might support when
he thinks of people in desperate circumstances, “I don't want to be in a
position of where I make it worse for them.”
Tramonte,
the pro-citizenship advocate, said of Obama that “we've been optimistic
before and been disappointed before, frankly.” For now, though, she and
her allies are “excited. What the
president's doing now is saying, 'I've had enough playing games I'm
going to do something,'” she said. “And that's leadership.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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