Posted on 11/18/2014 3:48:44 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
President Obama has a tough decision to make on the timing of an executive order to freeze deportations of illegal immigrants.
Senate Democrats want him to wait to give them time to pass an omnibus spending bill and other legislative priorities in the lame-duck session that is just now ramping up.
But delaying the action, even for a few weeks, could make Obama look weak and inflame immigration advocates who are already furious with him for holding back until after the midterm elections.
“You have growing anxiety amongst the immigrant community that’s losing faith that the president is going to do as he said he would do,” said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “I really think he’ll lose support from the Latino community if he continues to wait.”
Complicating the situation further, Obama is being asked to do a favor for Democratic lawmakers at a time when they are casting blame on him for the party’s disastrous showing at the ballot box.
One of the sharpest blows came from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) chief of staff, who excoriated Obama in a story published almost immediately after Democrats lost the Senate.
Obama postponed executive action on immigration reform until after the midterm elections at the behest of Democrats, and immigration advocates say there’s no reason to go that route again.
“Waiting doesn’t make sense,” said Clarissa Martínez-De-Castro, deputy vice president of research, advocacy and legislation at the National Council of La Raza. “This is about millions of American families who’ve been waiting for a very long time for something to be done,” she said.
But Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction of the immigration enforcement agencies that would be affected, said Obama should wait until next year.
“If I were the president, what I’d say to the Congress — House, Senate, Democrat or Republican — I’m going to give you a little bit of time and in the new Congress expect you to do something,” he said.
Carper said Obama should set a deadline for congressional action on immigration reform early next year and issue an executive order easing deportations if lawmakers fail to meet it.
“I would say not the first month, maybe the first quarter” of next year, the senator added.
Reid said last week that Obama should hold off until Congress passes a bipartisan omnibus spending bill negotiated by the Senate and House Appropriations committees.
“The president has said he’s going to do the executive action. The question is when. It’s up to him,” Reid said, according to Reuters. “But I’d like to get the finances of this country out of the way before he does it.”
Reid said he told the president of his preference, and the Democratic leader has made passing an omnibus a top priority of his final weeks in control of the Senate agenda.
“There are some members who hope the president waits until the government funding debate concludes in order to increase the chances Congress can pass an omnibus that funds the government at the appropriate levels through the fiscal year, as opposed to the Republican plan to pass a short-term CR [continuing resolution] that sets up brinksmanship early next year,” said a senior Democratic aide.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), a close Reid ally and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations panel, has spent months crafting the omnibus and is “laser-focused” on keeping it on track, according to another Democratic aide.
Republican leaders want to pass an omnibus package to “clear the decks” for 2015 and give them a chance to start next year’s budget and appropriations process with a clean slate, according to a senior GOP aide.
A presidential order freezing deportations, however, threatens to derail the omnibus, the aide said, and would make it tougher to pass other bills and confirm dozens of backlogged nominees.
“It really has a negative effect on everything,” said the aide. “Here you have a newly elected Republican majority in the Senate and expanded majority in the House that want to work in the center to do something big for the country and it seems Obama is rejecting the idea of finding common ground.”
House Republicans are now talking about moving a short-term funding measure that would expire early next year. That would give them a chance to pass another government funding bill next year that would prohibit the expenditure of funds on work permits and processing applications for immigrants covered by the order.
“The president is going to do an executive action on deportations, so Republicans shouldn’t pass an omnibus unless it includes language blocking an executive amnesty,” said a conservative Republican aide. “That’s why Republicans are increasingly of the mind that a short-term CR is the way to go.”
But pro-immigrant advocacy groups warn a delay of even a few weeks would hurt thousands of families.
“Every day that there’s no executive action over 1,000 families lose a loved one to deportation,” said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director at America’s Voice, a group that supports full labor, civil and political rights for immigrants. “It was not acceptable for them to delay this summer, this fall and certainly it would not be acceptable for them to delay any further.”
Senate Democratic leaders sent Obama a letter Monday urging him to issue an order easing deportations but it omitted a deadline for action.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that the timing of executive action “could be negotiable.”
Obama said over the weekend that he would not let GOP talk of blocking a government funding bill dissuade him from fulfilling his long-awaited promise to help keep illegal immigrants united with their families.
“I take Mitch McConnell at his word when he says that the government is not going to shut down,” he said of the incoming Senate leader.
After all, wasn't then-Senator Obama one of the U.S. senators who forced the "poison pill amendments" on the McCain-Kennedy bill and showed very little interest in the subject as Ruben Navarrette has told us often?....
[SNIP]
.....My God! They called me a racist for saying something like that on TV! I remember objecting to foreign flags at U.S. demonstrations and hearing that I was intolerant and basically anti-immigrant.
Were Hispanics informed of this in the 2008 campaign, when Senator Obama was running around promising to fix the immigration problem in his first term?
Did any Spanish-speaking reporter raise his hand and say: "Perdón...but you said this back in 2006"?
Did Spanish-speaking reporters read the book? I'm sure that there is a Spanish translation somewhere on the shelf!"
When are these fool Democrats going to realize– he’s not one of them...
If they don't like it...they can go back home!!!
There is no way they can deal or bargan with a liar.
Obama and his ilk will lie to everyone to destroy this country.
Go to hell you frigging racists! It's all about your ethnicity, isn't it? You have NO loyalty to the Country that gives you the right to be a**wholes, do you? You're nothing but punks who want stuff you're not entitled to.
Obama wants his EO now so immigration laws will be broken; so border control measures cannot be addressed and the floodgates will open.
-PJ
“I really think he’ll lose support from the Latino community if he continues to wait.”
Support for what? His re-election bid? At this point the only reason for Obama to forge ahead with this is to try to invent a legacy which, like ObamaCare, will be spun to make it look like something positive.
...“Waiting doesn’t make sense,” said Clarissa Martínez-De-Castro, deputy vice president of research, advocacy and legislation at the National Council of La Raza. “This is about millions of American families who’ve been waiting for a very long time for something to be done,” she said....
Go back to your home Country, and tell someone who cares!
They vote for who gives them the most free stuff.
.....Republican leaders want to pass an omnibus package to “clear the decks” for 2015 and give them a chance to start next year’s budget and appropriations process with a clean slate, according to a senior GOP aide.
A presidential order freezing deportations, however, threatens to derail the omnibus, the aide said, and would make it tougher to pass other bills and confirm dozens of backlogged nominees.....
Boehner could repeat his advice to 0bama > You go do what you gotta do
“a group that supports full labor, civil and political rights for immigrants.”
LEGAL immigrants already have these rights. So they must be talking about the other kind of immigrant. And no. If people trespass into your backyard and set up camp these goofs would be advocating you must give them the “right” to not only stay and live there, but you gotta give them work and if you have no jobs available you must buy them food and fund their education, oh and yeah if you want to sell they must get a say in any change of home ownership too haha.
The narcissist in chief will do what ever he damn well pleases no matter who suggests otherwise. He has done EXACTLY what he said he would do by fundamentally changing America. Although there have been attempts, no one has stopped him, YET. His day will come.
I think we could see the President possibly backing down on his promises and delay any action until 2015. Especially now with the possibility that the grand jury decision in Ferguson, MO could create a gigantic problem.
"Look" weak?
Did you see the reasons they want to wait, though?
It’s so that republicans can’t hold the omnibus spending bill up in retaliation or to thwart the amnesty.
Mark Levin was livid that it appears that the Republicans are willing to go along with it, and hand over all of their leverage before the new Congress is even in session.
-PJ
Yep. What to do, what to do...... Announce during the fury over Ferguson, or use it as a distraction from Grubber. Decisions, decisions.....
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