In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, the lame duck president has made things worse for both himself and the Democratic Party by attempting to bully what will be a fully republican controlled congress come January. Republicans are just getting started on immigration reform and there is nothing President Obama can do to change that.
We have all heard the talking points; democrats failed to move on immigration reform when they controlled congress, Obama failed to make immigration a priority until after the 2012 election and now, with a Senate bill passed, the House refuses to “act responsibly”, in the words of the president, and take the bill to the floor for a vote. This political rhetoric is just a temporary distraction from the problem the democrats face on immigration.
Speaker Boehner was more than forthcoming with his announcement earlier this year when he indicated that there was a faction in the House, including himself, that simply does not trust the president to enforce the laws of the land and rightly so! Boehner also has stated that until this situation changes, it is unlikely that the immigration debate will move forward.
Well that change took place earlier this month and Republican are poised and ready to move forward on immigration reform once the new Senate is in place in January.
This is about Border Security not Deportation
The entire immigration stalemate revolves around the failure to secure our borders.
Republican lawmakers have no more intention of rounding up and deporting the estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants living in this country than do the democrats, but insinuating so makes a great talking point for the left.
Our immigration system is broken and has been for decades as was stated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a recent interview with Univision. In an attempt to justify the forthcoming executive action to be taken by the president on immigration, Reid stated,
“Republican presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower have used executive action to fix immigration,”
While it was Reid’s intention to make the point that republican presidents have repeatedly used executive action to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, just as President Obama was preparing to do, he instead admitted that for the past half century both republicans and democrats have failed to stop the inflow of illegal immigrants into this country.
The Senate Immigration Bill is Flawed
The 1300 page Senate immigration bill that President Obama has been pushing Boehner to allow a vote on in the House is no exception to the long list of legislation that have failed to adequately address the issue of border security.
The Senate bill does a great deal in the way of granting amnesty to those who have entered this country illegally and very little to ensure that the inflow of illegal immigrants is stopped. The Senate immigration bill will do little more than ensure the cycle of unlawful entry to amnesty that has plagued this nation for decades continues.
In particular, there are two non-starters in the Senate bill for House Republicans.
The first is that the Senate bill places legalization ahead of security. The majority of House Republicans have been adamant that the borders must be secured before handing out legal status to those that are already here. Failing to reform immigration in that order is only asking for more immigrants to cross over the boarder while the border security issue continues to get hung up in congress and the courts. Republican lawmakers have made the offer, time and again, to put forth legislation that first secures the border and then works towards amnesty but those offers have been rejected by democrats without debate.
The second non-started is that the bill simply does not stop the inflow if illegal immigrants. According to an analysis conducted by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Senate immigration bill will reduce illegal immigration by only one-third to one-half and this prediction is made on the assumption that the president will actually enforce the law and not make unilaterally changes to it that would weaken boarder security.
The House also has a constitutional concern with the Senate bill which contains some revenue-raising components. Per the United States Constitution, all revenue bills must originate in the House.
Democrats Have No Interest in Securing the Boarder
If history is any indicator, the likelihood of democrats living up to any of the border security measures proposed on the Senate immigration bill is slim to none.
Republicans got duped in the 1986 immigration overhaul were 3 million undocumented immigrants were granted the opportunity to apply for citizenship in exchange for a secure border. Ronald Reagan held up his end of the bargain but democrats reneged on theirs and the border was never secured.
The same thing happened when George W Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law in 2007, a law that received tremendous bi-partisan support. And yet, the following year, with then House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the helm, funding for the act was slashed by House appropriations, an action that is most certainly being reminisced by House Republicans after last night’s promise of executive action on immigration by the president.
And it was just this past June that Nancy Pelosi described the United States as a “community, with a border going through it” and added, “We are all Americans – north and south in the hemisphere.”
It’s pretty hard to imagine that, with the democrat’s track record, they would stand by any border security components legislated in the Senate immigration bill thus giving no reason for Boehner to take up the bill. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me three and four times, I’m just a lousy legislator.
This Is On Obama
The sentiment of House Republicans is both real and justified. The precedent of President Obama to assert his executive authority and override laws has been demonstration well over a dozen times on the ObamaCare law alone, not to mention executive actions he has already taken on other immigration matters some of which resulted in a huge inflow if illegal immigrants.
At the bidding of President Obama, the Senate immigration bill is another fine example of political game play. A bill well-crafted to foster strong bi-partisan support in the areas of amnesty but loosely structured when it comes to the creation and enforcement of border security. And with no intention of compromise on the border security issue, the president and his party have made it easy to portray House Republicans as wanting to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
But the plan has backfired on the President as he lost his trump card, his party’s control of the Senate.
House and Senate Republicans most certainly will be working together to bring a piece or maybe even a number of pieces of legislation to their floors for passage and then on to the President’s desk. The legislation is likely to closely resemble the existing Senate immigration bill in regards to the handling of the millions of illegal immigrants that are already in this country leaving the president little excuse not to sign that piece of legislation into law. There will also be a piece of legislation that demands border security before any form of path to citizenship can commence. The failure of the president to sign this piece of legislation in to law will clearly show that he has never had any intention to close our borders.
House Republicans have the voice of the people on their side, the majority of which are in lock step agreement with their approach to immigration reform.
President Obama will have to make a choice. He can compromise on the issue of border security or he can veto the Republican bill(s) and take additional executive action to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants already here as well as keep the flow illegal immigrants into our country alive. If he chooses the latter he will then have to pray his actions survive legal challenge.
Let Us Not Forget the Constitution
All the immigration debates and legal wrangling that is set to take place in both chambers of congress is pillow talk compared to the constitutional challenge that will be set in motion when the president oversteps his constitutional authority with the executive order he is getting ready to sign. President Obama is not a legislator; he is the executive and therefor has no constitutional authority to change the law as he has so stated he is going to do.
This is not an issue up for debate, it is implicit and intentional in the United States Constitution as our founding fathers had the fortitude to see the dangers of allowing the powers of one branch of government to reach into another.
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