Here’s the complexity on immigration reform. As minorities become the American majority, Republicans need to expand their constituency, to embrace the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the country. Latinos. They are a dominant force in Texas and a number of southwestern states, where the GOP rules with an iron hand. They stayed home in droves rather than vote after the Obama administration – seemingly terrified of losing the American “middle” – failed to act on immigration reform before the mid-term elections, disappointed at Democrats who refused to stand up for that community and angry at the Republican Tea Party/Base at opposing even the mildest notion of citizenship (or even a green card) for children brought over the border at a very early age who are otherwise completely American. The GOP has even said it expects to recruit heavily and successfully within what they see as a conservative, Catholic, Latino “base.” Here comes the test.
So now, the president announces an administrative reform that stops the possible deportation of about four to five million undocumented resident aliens – almost all Latinos – without running it by Congress. Unconstitutional cry the Republicans; you have to run reform through us. There are GOP talks about defunding the underlying cost of implementing that Obama proposal, perhaps even shutting down the government until Obama relents.
But some in the GOP see that as one of Obama’s expectations, a hope to lure the Base into shutting down the government right smack at the beginning of the new congress. That would accomplish two Democratic goals, even allowing those Democrats in Congress to blame an unpopular lame-duck president: 1. It would render meaningless the GOP election pledge to govern effectively, showing that they are incapable of getting out of their doctrinaire mandates from gerrymandered constituencies, and 2. It would prove rather clearly to the Latino community that the GOP is their enemy since nothing that they have proposed resonates with that community and blocking clear reform would only reinforce that reality. The Democrats have much favor to win back with the Latino community, and the GOP might just be playing into their hands. Dirty pool? A nasty trap set by the Democrats for the “victorious” Republican Party? Do the Dems have any other choice?
The Republicans cry foul over the methodology of the president’s unilateral imposition of his non-deportation order. The administration claims it has the right as all prosecutors do of determining priorities and whom to go after. Much like states not enforcing “blue laws” (businesses required to close on Sundays), adultery (a crime in many states), etc. “A chorus of Republicans on [November 19th] accused Obama of behaving like a monarch — or, as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) put it, ‘emperor of the United States.’ They pointed to a litany of Obama’s own past statements to make their case, noting that he often said there were limits to what he could do in the absence of a comprehensive new immigration law.
“While there are decades of precedent for executives — both Democratic and Republican — claiming leeway in choosing which immigration cases to pursue, none has applied ‘prosecutorial discretion’ as broadly as Obama is expected to do.” Washington Post, November 20th. Can the GOP convince the Latino community that it is not trying to attack them, that instead they are simply contain an imperious president gone rogue? Will this procedural argument hold water with Latinos when effectively the result rather directly goes against that community and no one else?
“[Obama argues] that his policy is simply an acknowledgment of practical reality: that the government’s limited resources should be devoted to dealing with the cases that pose the greatest public safety threat, and that Congress itself has failed to act… A comprehensive immigration bill passed the Democratic-led Senate in June 2013, but the GOP-majority House has not moved on the issue.” The Post.
Many have suggested that without an executive order, there will be no immigration reform, that the GOP is so divided that it cannot allow “on the record” votes in favor of a sensible policy, which would risk alienating the ultra-conservative voters in gerrymandered districts where the only battles are among and between Republicans in the primaries. And without the Democrats effectively pushing immigration reform forward, there is little reason for the Latino vote to rally behind a Democratic Party that seems lost without their vote.
“Politically, Obama has little choice: He had promised for months to undertake this kind of executive action, which will be an expansion of his 2012 decision to protect from deportation hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to the country illegally as children.
“‘He has boxed himself in completely,’ said William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who was a top domestic policy adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House. ‘Politically speaking, there has been a promissory note outstanding for a long time.’… Were Obama to fail to follow through, Galston said, he would not only lose credibility, but could damage his party’s relationship with Latinos.
“‘The road to the White House comes through the [Hispanic] community in critical states,’ said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). He added that unless Republicans come up with their own proposal for fixing the immigration system, ‘they’re in trouble.’” The Post.
While other presidents have used executive actions on immigration matters – from Eisenhower to Regan and H.W. Bush – the president’s position is quite a bit more expansive. Focused on folks who have been here for a while (particularly those who came here as kids or close relatives to legal residents and those who have been here more than five years), he announced tighter border controls and a clear mandate to deport convicted felons.
It’s not amnesty, he noted, and invited legitimate undocumented people to “come out of the shadows.” Good for the economy, supportive of families, he declared. To Congress he noted: if you don’t like it, “pass a bill.” But Republican reaction was strongly negative. Four GOP governors plan on suing the President. A firestorm has risen from the conservative right. A hellish combination or a clear window into the next two years of political darkness? Ugly!
I’m Peter Dekom, and this is a very clear inflection point in the future of American politics.
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