President Obama is planning to ignore Republican protest and in the next
week reveal an immigration enforcement order that will protect up to 5 million
illegal immigrants by providing them with work permits. A key component of the
mandate is that it will allow parents of children who are legal residents to
obtain legal work permits, thus keeping families together. The order make it
clear though that deportations will still proceed for convicted criminals,
immigrants that pose a national security risk, and recent border crossers. President
Obama said he wanted to do whatever possible to improve the immigration system
before the end of the year. However this order by President Obama is not going
to bode well with Republicans and will most likely effect negotiations about
the nations budget. It is feared that if the President executes a mandate like
this it will thwart all future bipartisanship.
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Will this change in immigration policy be good for the US?
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How will this order affect future negotiations in Congress?
8 comments:
I believe that this is a positive change for our country—the President is making good on his promise for immigration reform, and thousands of hard-working families may be able to stay together. However, whether this was the right political move is another question. Like you said, this mandate, which I foresee the Republican-controlled Congress would view as an abuse of presidential power, would make it even harder for President Obama and the Republicans to compromise and cooperate. Personally, though, I think immigration reform is a humanitarian cause worth the risk the President is taking.
As someone who comes from a family of immigrants (3 of 4 grandparents), I Think that all moves towards immigration reform are a step in the right direction. America was founded on Immigrants and every day more and more seek refuge in this country. Some Americans think that these “illegal aliens” are destroying our country, but what they don't understand is how bad these immigrants have it. Countries of origin must be so bad that the immigrants are willing to give up everything they have, including their families, to come make a better life for themselves in a strange new place. If these Immigrants then work their fingers to the bone every day to survive, and are not a burden to society (criminals) they should be rewarded with an easier path towards citizenship. While this may have an effect on Congress’ negotiations with The President, I highly doubt it will thwart all future bipartisanship. While Conservatives are not linked hand in hand with Obama, they still need his approval on bills, as they don’t have the numbers to override his veto. Therefore, they will still need to cooperate and compromise if they want to pass anything.
Being an immigrant myself, I agree with such action in order to assist other immigrants. Coming from third and second world countries, people try to make a better life for themselves, and provide for their families. An immigrant does not just "come in, take our jobs, and not pay taxes." An immigrant worker understands how merely being in the United States is a privilege, rather than a right. An immigrant works that much harder to pave the way for themselves and their children. An average American citizen would not agree to work 60+ hours a week. But an immigrant would. An American citizen does not need to go through medical screenings in order to have the right to obtain permanent residence in this country. An immigrant makes so many sacrifices in order to just be in this country. An American citizen (who is not go through naturalization) just has to be born. Hence, I agree that any action to help immigrants is a positive change. And, as Andros pointed out, America is a nation of immigrants, and was from the very beginning.
As for this being a good political move or not, I feel that it is. President Obama promised on June 30th to get this order into action by the end of summer. Later, he postponed to after the midterm elections. Now here we are. There was a lot of pressure from the immigrant community for President Obama to get this through. When he postponed the order, a lot of tension rose from the immigrants. Had President Obama not done this, there would be a lot of anger coming from the immigrants. Later, they might refuse to cooperate because they were promised something they never got. They would not like nor trust the government. This is a good move in the long run, because the immigrant community now does have reason to believe that they are represented, and their voices are heard. Like any American, their opinions ought to count, and they ought to be heard.
As Elena said, Obama had been postponing this action for awhile now. He initially had promised to reform immigration policy over the summer, but then postponed it until after the midterm election as he was afraid the executive action would hurt thee Democratic party in certain areas. If Obama had not enacted some sort of immigration reform now, the Latino community already upset about the lack of action on immigration could stop continuing to support Obama and the Democratic party. Immigration reform was discussed by some commentators as a way the Republicans could expand their collation to fit the changing demographics in the US. With Obama's executive action, the Republican congress may lose some credit if they are able to pass any Immigration Reform legislation.
The issues with immigration have always been of contention between the two parties, and while I agree personally with Obama's choice to allow many of the immigrants here to stay by giving them work permits and at the same time enabling their children to stay as well, there is no doubt the Rebpublicans would be less than happy about a mandate such as this one. Simply trying to pack them all up and deport them is absolutely ridiculous, they have jobs, they have lives here. Additionally, whether we like to admit it or not they make up a key component of the work force. That's not necessarily to say the largest part, but definitely an important one. This is more than an act of good faith that the President is making good on.
While I'm certain that Republicans will view this as an abuse of presidential power, most will probably choose to let it slide. Republicans are keenly aware of the need to gain the Hispanic vote, and publicly criticizing efforts to keep immigrant families together will hurt that effort. They may use it as leverage for increased border control by saying, "We let you be a bleeding heart liberal, so now you have to give us something." I definitely see immigration being an issue, if not the main issue, in Congress during these next few years.
The main stance I take in these immigration debates is that one million illegal immigrants have more negative effects on the country than those same million people if they were legal residents. Thus, I believe in hugely increasing the number of people allowed into the country legally while simultaneously tightening the screws on border security.
For this reason, I approve of this change. In the absence of proper legal reform, I think that this is one of the better options. It will be a minimum of 2 years before there is any chance of immigration reform, assuming that a Republican president gets elected and the Republicans retain control over Congress. Thus, I think this is the best change we will get for a long time.
What will be interesting to see is the opposition's response to this movement on immigration. As Cleo mentioned the Republicans are in an uncomfortable position to retaliate, but that does not necessarily mean they won't. The current framing of Obama's plan for reform, at least from the perspective of Fox News, is that he is desperately trying to gain support from Hispanic and liberal voters after the Republicans gained a majority in Congress. There has also been accusations of Obama preventing progress by using executive power to move around Congress, something which goes against previous promises of working with Congress on the issue.In my opinion this seems to be going in a similar direction as Obamacare has gone, where Republicans deny any kind of movement on the issue of immigration simply because it was pressed forward by Obama and his supporting party. It is nice to hope for further cooperation between Congress and the President, but if current trends have taught us anything it seems rather doubtful.
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