Obama Administration To Stop Deporting Certain Illegal Immigrants Brought Here As Children
Friday, June 15, 2012 at 10:53AM
President Barack Obama greets people in the audience after delivering the keynote address at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies 18th Annual Gala Dinner in Washington, D.C., May 8, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)When the DREAM Act died in Congress many feared of what would come of the thousands of children, many now adults, who unwittingly were not citizens when their parents brought them illegally to the United States. Many, not knowing their status until their mid-to-late teens, found pathways to careers and college closed as they lived in constant fear of deportation from the only home they've ever known. Circumventing Congress, the Obama Administration announced Friday they would stop deporting certain younger illegal immigrants who fit a specific criteria: those who were brought here at age 16 or younger; are presently age 30 or younger; have no criminal record; have been in the US for at least five continuative years; and have either a GED, a U.S. high school diploma or have served in the military.
The decision will potentially affect some 800,000 people, finally setting in motion -- at least partially -- what the DREAM Act hoped to do -- finally allowing some breathing room for those trapped in the shadows of our society by no fault of their own.
From the Associated Press:
Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. The officials who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it in advance of the official announcement.
The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods. It tracks closely to a proposal offered by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as an alternative to the DREAM Act.
"Many of these young people have already contributed to our country in significant ways," Napolitano wrote in a memorandum describing the administration's action. "Prosecutorial discretion, which is used in so many other areas, is especially justified here."
Since this is an election year, there's no doubt there will be a lot of discussion of how and why and when and definitely whether or not this will affect the president's support among minority voters -- specifically Latinos who have become the face of the immigration debate.
While Obama's support among Latinos remains high, enthusiasm was low, as many disapproved of how the president's administration handled deportations, with a rate of 59 percent disapproving. So, along with raising some spirits, there will be the usual speculations about intent and timing. But for those stuck in the administrative hell that is our deportation process, it's better late than never.
Naturally, Congressional Republicans will probably stomp their fists and throw fits, but they could have offered up their own solution to this many, many times over or could have compromised on the DREAM Act, but it's been an open secret that the GOP intended on disapproving air if the president endorsed oxygen.
From a review of the book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks" that addresses how the modern GOP came to hold government hostage in their thirst for power:
Their principal conclusion is unequivocal: Today’s Republicans in Congress behave like a parliamentary party in a British-style parliament, a winner-take-all system. But a parliamentary party — “ideologically polarized, internally unified, vehemently oppositional” — doesn’t work in a “separation-of-powers system that makes it extremely difficult for majorities to work their will.”
These Republicans “have become more loyal to party than to country,” the authors write, so “the political system has become grievously hobbled at a time when the country faces unusually serious problems and grave threats. . . . The country is squandering its economic future and putting itself at risk because of an inability to govern effectively.”
Today’s Republican Party has little in common even with Ronald Reagan’s GOP, or with earlier versions that believed in government. Instead it has become “an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition . . . all but declaring war on the government.”
So the push back will reek of hypocrisy, as the president tried to get Congressional Republicans to work with the executive branch and Congressional Democrats in hashing out a mutually agreed upon solution to our serious immigration woes and they -- like with everything from the economy to our health care -- said "Thanks, but no thanks."
When you chose not to act, you essentially chose whatever is the outcome of that inaction, but don't hold your breath waiting for anyone to point that out.
Reader Comments (7)
This is my first time coming across your blog and i will be sure to share this post with others.
--So the push back will reek of hypocrisy, as the president tried to get Congressional Republicans to work with the executive branch and Congressional Democrats in hashing out a mutually agreed upon solution to our serious immigration woes and they -- like with everything from the economy to our health care -- said "Thanks, but no thanks."--
Assumie your argument is true, the Republican's are obstructionists. So what exactly did the Democrats do from 2009-2011 when they controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency regarding immigration? NOTHING
@ liontooth
Well ...
From 2009 until the end of 2010 (which was how long Democrats actually controlled both houses of Congress), the House lead by Nancy Pelosi was fairly successful in passing the president's agenda as the House is a "majority rule" vote. But the Democrats had only a very tenuous majority in the Senate, no where near the 60 filibusterer-proof majority to stop any obstruction on bills.
Republicans used this to their advantage in the Senate by either filibustering or threatening to filibusterer anything that came out of the House. The 110th and 111th Congresses where the GOP was in the minority actually broke records for the amount of times the filibuster was used to stop legislation. (Source: Associated Press) Therefore when things would eventually pass based on the Democratic agenda in the Senate it resembled almost nothing the president had proposed or the House had backed, so then the House would refuse to pass the Senate's versions of bills when they would make it to the House. And that is how Republican obstruction affected the first two years of the Obama Administration when there was a Democratic majority in both houses.
This is why the Health Care bill was so frustrating to everyone because the bill was heavily compromised in order to get it through potential Republican obstruction. The bill was changed drastically to appeal to the GOP, even modifying itself after previous GOP health care plans and the GOP came out against it anyway after it became law as part of an over all strategy to win back the presidency in 2012 by making the president look ineffectual. The same thing happened to The DREAM Act, which died in the Senate due to Republican obstruction. The DREAM Act was the president's effort to do something about immigration and it failed in Congress due to the GOP's strategy.
In the summer of 2011, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, on the record, that his goal was to stop Obama's re-election -- not fix the economy or end wars, and the GOP has governed in Congress under this ideology. Ultimately making our governance not about actually governing people but jockeying for power for power's sake.
So, it's not like the GOP is hiding the fact that they've been obstructionist all four years. They're pretty open about it. It's their strategy to get him out, even if it means tanking the economy right along with the presidency. It's a nuclear option, but hey, I'm sure there'll still be plenty of America around to govern after their through. It'll be broker with no health care, but it'll still be there.
As for why the president waited until now to use his executive powers, I imagine that had to do with one part not wanting to hear the criticism of an executive branch over-stepping it's powers (as the Obama Administration is constantly accused of doing by Republicans) and part "it's an election year so ... desperate times, desperate measures."
--From 2009 until the end of 2010 (which was how long Democrats actually controlled both houses of Congress), the House lead by Nancy Pelosi was fairly successful in passing the president's agenda as the House is a "majority rule" vote. But the Democrats had only a very tenuous majority in the Senate, no where near the 60 filibusterer-proof majority to stop any obstruction on bills.--
According to the link you posted, this statement isn't true. While the democrats didn't have 60 votes for the entire 2009-2010 time period, they did have it for a significant amount of that time period.
From the link:
""During most of Obama's first year in office and for a few weeks this year, 58 Democratic senators and two Independents who normally vote with them held a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.
That vanished last month when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown captured the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died last summer.""
-- So, it's not like the GOP is hiding the fact that they've been obstructionist all four years. They're pretty open about it. It's their strategy to get him out, even if it means tanking the economy right along with the presidency. It's a nuclear option, but hey, I'm sure there'll still be plenty of America around to govern after their through. It'll be broker with no health care, but it'll still be there.--
Members of Congress are elected to do the bidding of their constituents. They are there to represent what they want, not to rubber stamp the President's programs. Since the President has been elected, more voters have voted against his party and voted Republicans. Obviously, the people don't like what the Democrats are doing.
The majority of people don't agree about the health care law nor about spending government money escalating the debt. In regards to the economy, how exactly is spending more money going to help the economy? The original stimulus was sold on the basis that unemployment wouldn't go above 8% if it passed. It did pass and it didn't work.
@ liontooth
While I don't doubt that some people don't agree with the President or his policies I find it hard to believe that anyone elects anyone solely to say no. When people say they disapprove of Congress they're disapproving of the big fat nothing that they've been able to produce from the lack of compromise. You want your Congress member to actually put forth ideas and legislation to fit your desires and needs and to actually work together with other members of Congress for the betterment of the country. And most polls show people are for what the stimulus and the health care plans do when you remove their political loaded names from them. And the Health Care plan hasn't even been enacted yet, so most people are just responding to what people say it will do, not what it actually does since it hasn't done it yet. Most people want the government to reinvest in our crumbling infrastructure and think it's unfair that health insurance companies can turn people away.
By refusing to negotiate or even put up legislation to offer alternatives to the stimulus program or health care or anything that is a real problem in our country they've made Congress so dysfunctional that nothing gets done. I find it hard to believe that anyone elected the GOP in Congress hoping they would say no so much that the entire country's credit rating would be lowered or that the GOP would stymie efforts on various "jobs" bills, cut government jobs (as if they're not jobs for people) which in turn, causes more unemployment, or that the GOP would block 9/11 rescue workers health care, or that the GOP would fight things they'd traditionally passed because the President had co-opted a Republican idea in hopes the Republicans would support their own ideas.
There are three co-equal branches of government, but in their obsession with one man they've simply chosen not to govern and focus on getting Obama out. Why would you hold back on doing anything to help the country -- when people are broke and out of work -- simply because you don't want the president to win at anything? That's why I said things have turned into a cynical game of power for power's sake.
As for that one year the president had a filibuster proof majority, that would have been amazingly ambitious for Obama to pass his entire agenda his first year in office in one year when Congress doesn't work holidays or the summer and Democrats (unlike Republicans) don't vote lock step on anything. Also, as you may recall, the President spent most of 2009 reaching out to Republicans because he wanted there to be both sides coming together on solutions. But, since they had an obstructionist mindset you can imagine how well that went.
I would suggest that you check out the book "It's Even Worse Than You Think" (written by two political think tank guys, one liberal, one conservative. Here's also a link to the op-ed they wrote around the time the book came out.) that pretty aptly explains the problems in Congress when one party is solely consumed with throwing out a president and not governance. The GOP isn't doing anyone any favors by simply fighting with Obama all the time instead of getting to work in trying to fix America's problems. All they're doing is making both parties even worse and people to lose even more faith in the political system. The Democrats have their own issues (which largely come with it being a big tent party, but also dealing with the insane amount of money being thrown around in politics these days), but at least their not diametrically opposed to compromise as a political philosophy.
Also, I don't mind debating, but you're going to need to throw up some facts. I'm not a big fan of a "moving target" debate, where I counter something and try to source it, but you just say whatever and don't source anything and don't even acknowledge or address when the sources refute something you wrote. I can admit that I easily forgot that one year there was a filibuster proof majority and during that year, I was railing about how crappy Senate Leader Harry Reid was about getting people to coalesce around a vote because getting Democrats together on a vote is like herding cats. But that still involves negotiation, which is crucial for our government work. I don't like it, but at least it's working towards something. Slowly. Unlike now.
My original question was what did the democrats do regarding immigration (your article Re: the DREAM Act) when they had Majorities in both Houses and the Presidency for 2 years. I had conceded for the sake of argument that the Republicans were obstructionists.
You stated that the Republicans in the Senate during those 2 years negated the majority the democrats had because there was "no where near the 60 filibusterer-proof majority to stop any obstruction on bills."
The source you posted (AP) disputed your claim for almost half of that time frame (most of 2009). You had linked to the (AP) Republican obstruction in general, nothing specifically to the Dream Act.
In 2010, the Dream Act combined with the House version was voted on and only got 55 votes. Five votes against were from Democrats while . five Republicans had voted FOR the measure
The measure failed because of 5 Democrats. So it's simply not true that "The same thing happened to The DREAM Act, which died in the Senate due to Republican obstruction. " And since 5 Republicans did vote on the DREAM ACT measure in the Senate, it simply isn't true that they are a lock step block as you stated.
@ liontooth
Well, if that's all you want (proof of obstruction that kept comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act from passing despite Obama's efforts) the vote you're referring to was a cloture vote to end the filibuster on the DREAM Act, not a vote on the actual bill. After the first effort to stop the filibuster succeeded, they ran into another snag where a cloture vote was needed and, again, they needed 60 votes to move the bill to a vote. They got 55.
From Huffington Post:
If the bill had been allowed to go to the floor, it would have only needed a simple majority to pass. But they needed 60 to stop another filibuster. The cloture vote to end the filibuster failed. Which is pretty much the story of the DREAM Act, which in different iterations has been trying to pass Congress since the Bush Administration.
Here's a legislative history of the DREAM Act, from it's beginnings in 2001 to its failure to pass in 2007, 2009 and 2010.
My point was always that the President wanted the DREAM Act and was for comprehensive immigration before but due to obstruction by the GOP in Congress he couldn't get anything through. The story of the bill, including that final cloture vote that failed to end the filibuster is just that. That is the story of the immigration issue, even in those two years where Obama had Democratic majorities in both houses of government. Different versions of the bill passed both houses, but when it came time to get the thing through the Senate that last time it couldn't get around the need for a filibuster-proof majority to bring the bill to an actual vote on the floor. It was the GOP that put up the filibuster and invoked vote stopping measures rather than letting the bill go to the floor for a proper vote where a simple majority would have passed it. And that's what killed the bill.
If your point was that five Democrats voted against it, I've always said that the Democrats don't vote lock step typically and this time was no different. Those five Dems were from conservative-leaning states and at the time, the GOP was saying the DREAM Act was an "amnesty" bill, painting it as a negative in the eyes of many conservative voters. But the DREAM Act had enough votes to pass if it went to the floor for a normal vote. But it didn't have the 60 needed to beat the filibuster.