Washington D.C. Split on Immigration

Thursday night, the President spelled out his executive order, that will shield nearly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation. Republicans were quick to criticize. Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the President is going to end up regretting this action. Republicans are mulling over a variety of responses. Anything from suing the president for taking an action that they believe is presidential overreach and unconstitutional, to try to cut funding for some of the agencies that will be involved in implementing some of these new rules.

Supporters say the President finally acted on a move that was long overdue. But in 2009 and 2010, when the President had majorities in the Senate and the House, he did zero to reform immigration. In 22 different cases, Obama said, “I cannot take executive action on immigration.” Now, without support from the Senate or House, he’s now doing exactly that. Critics say, this is nothing new for Obama. It seems to follow a pattern of behavior. When President Obama does not get his way, he decides to step over Congress, and write the law the way he wants to do it.

Supporters of Obama’s immigration action say this is well within his power, and that he’s done exactly what every other president has done before him. Both Bushes, father and son, Ronald Reagan, they all took action on immigration, very similar to what President Obama did on Thursday night. But that’s another misrepresentation, commonly paraded out by Liberals. Ronald Reagan took executive action on immigration only AFTER there was a vote in the House and Senate. Obama could have easily passed an immigration bill during Democratic Majority session of Congress, but he chose not to. Just earlier this year, he punted on immigration in a blatant move to dodge political pressure from Conservatives.

This entire bill is subject to being underfunded, defunded and stripped apart by Congress. Many people see it as a bold power play move, intended to build a strong voter base within the Latino community before the 2016 election. There are other obstacles too. President Obama says immigrants can stay, as long as they’ve been here for five years. But there is nothing to verify if they’ve been here five years or not. Essentially, Obama’s message to illegal immigrants is this: If you stole it, and managed to evade the authorities for 5 years, you get to keep what you stole. But there is a small price. Now, you have to pay taxes. Undocumented workers, meet the IRS. You two are going to get along great.