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One voice chiming in against President Obama's expected immigration announcement is Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho. Labrador is backed by the Tea Party, part of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, and a former immigration lawyer who represented undocumented residents fighting deportation. He spoke with NPR's Melissa Block ahead of the president's speech, in which Obama is set to announce executive action granting temporary relief to some of the more than 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. Interview Highlights On how he feels Republicans should respond to the president's action The first thing we need to explain...

WASHINGTON (CNN) —Opponents of President Barack Obama's plan, which makes sweeping changes to the nation's immigration system by use of executive order, focused their criticism on the legal case, saying Obama has overstepped the boundaries of his authority and is ignoring the will of the people. -snip- Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he "will not sit idly by and let the President bypass Congress and our Constitution." "President Obama is not above the law and has no right to issue executive amnesty. His actions blatantly ignore the Separations of Powers and the principles our country was founded on. The President...

When Janet Murguía, president of the nation’s largest Latino advocacy group, the National Council of La Raza, delivered a speech at the annual Capital Awards dinner last March, she labeled President Barack Obama the “deporter-in-chief.” But when Murguía joined MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes immediately following the president’s address to the nation on immigration Thursday night, she expressed a very different outlook. “I thought it was very compelling, very powerful and very reaffirming,” Murguía said of Obama’s speech, in which he formally announced his executive action that will protect up to five million undocumented immigrants from deportation. “For us,...

A group of activists welcomed President Obama’s unilateral changes to immigration policy by saying that it’s not expansive enough. “Today’s victory is tremendous, but to be real, it is incomplete,” United We Dream managing director Cristina Jimenez said Thursday evening. “But too many of our parents, LGBTQ brothers and sisters and friends were left out. United We Dream doesn’t agree with that decision and we are determined to fight for their protection. Our community sticks together. This is a long-term struggle. We will continue organizing until our entire community can come forward and enjoy the full rights of citizenship.”

Some held battery-operated tea lights while some held American flags and signs that said "Gracias, Presidente Obama" with outlines of hand-holding families along the bottom. Some chanted, "Obama, Amigo, El Pueblo esta contigo!", which means, "Obama, Friend, The Community Is With You! When his speech ended, some shouted, "Si se pudo!" which means, "Yes, we could!" "Oh my God, this is good!" shouted Miguel Correa, an immigrant who has been in the U.S. illegally for 14 years. "Thanks, Obama!"

President Obama met with more than a dozen prominent civil and immigration rights activists Thursday ahead of his speech debuting a series of new steps that will extend deportation relief and work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. Attendees at the meeting included AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, NAACP president Cornell Brooks and Al Sharpton. The MSNBC host has come under fire in recent days after The New York Times reported he and his companies were at one point subject to $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens. Also in attendance was Janet Murguía, the head of...

Rep. Michele Bachmann warned that the immigrants about to be amnestied have high illiteracy rates and may vote. The left howled, but the reality is she understated it. The hard data tell the story. Commenting on President Obama's amnesty of 5 million illegals, the Minnesota Republican told reporters at the Capitol, "The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer — millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming to the United States who can't speak the English language." She added that many will vote illegally, too. An outraged, politically correct reporter from the Washington Post then asked Bachmann just...

President Barack Obama will address the nation tonight to announce an executive action that could allow 5 million unauthorized immigrants to remain in the United States without fear of deportation. In doing so, he will set in motion a bruising Congressional battle that has been two years in the making, one that will draw Minnesota's delegation into the fray. Although the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration overhaul in the spring of 2013, one that Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken helped craft in the Judiciary Committee, immigration hardliners in the House blocked all efforts to pass a bill. Efforts by departing...

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican “It is time to stand strong for the American people. It is time to champion the interests of those constantly neglected on the question of immigration: the men and women and children we represent—the citizens of this country to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance. Every American must ask their Senator where they stand.” U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, Republican “President Obama's plan to unilaterally grant amnesty to millions of individuals who have broken our nation's immigration laws is unconstitutional and must not be tolerated. If the President truly believed that this approach was in the...

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said President Obama would be breaking the law if he takes executive action on immigration. “He does break the law, and he does it all the time,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor Thursday. Later Thursday night, Obama is expected to announce an executive order to issue nearly 5 million work visas to immigrants, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens. The administration has said this action is legal and necessary because the House failed to take up Senate-passed immigration reform legislation. Inhofe said this would be “just another one of our laws that...

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) accused the White House of deliberately scheduling President Obama's announcement on his immigration executive action after lawmakers left town. In a speech to an empty House chamber after the last votes of the week, King said President Obama and his "minions" must have checked the congressional calendar before deciding on the Thursday prime-time announcement. King noted that "95 percent" of lawmakers would be out of town by the 8 p.m. address to head home for the Thanksgiving holiday. "We shouldn't think it's timed that way by accident," King said. "It's strategically timed so that members of...

"I think if the American people look, they will see that this is not a runaway president, this is not a president who desires not to work with the Congress, it is a president that is begging for the reasonableness of these Republicans to be Americans and to stand collectively to solve an American problem and let's do it together. He is within his authority and he's doing the right thing. There are too many people in pain."

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) chided Republicans for threatening to halt progress on a government funding bill because of President Obama’s executive action on immigration. “Even children understand that flipping the table over doesn’t help you win the game,” Murray said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It just means someone has to pick up the mess you’ve made. And when it comes to Tea Party political tactics, we’ve done more than enough of that here in Congress.” Murray, the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman, said she was disappointed that some Republicans are threatening to shut down the government again “just to keep...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is concerned that dangerous criminals and terrorists will not get deported when President Barack Obama enacts his executive amnesty and further weakens the nation's immigration laws and enforcement mechanisms. In a Wednesday letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Grassley, the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote that it is "unsettling" that Obama "is intent on condoning contempt for the rule of law and ignoring his Constitutional duty to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'" “The egregious use of executive action and rule by fiat is bad enough, but knowing that undocumented...

Often at odds with the Obama administration over religious liberty, abortion, and gay marriage, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out on the president’s side this month, pleased with his decision to act unilaterally on immigration, a move they’ve been encouraging for some time. In a little-noted September letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, they chided Congress for its inaction. “We write to urge you to use your authority to protect undocumented individuals and families as soon as possible, within the limits of your executive authority,” the letter began. “With immigration reform legislation stalled in...

The executive order coming from President Obama to protect millions of immigrants from deportation falls short, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) said Thursday. Durbin, an author of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill and the second-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, called Obama’s action a good first step, but argued it should do more. “Here’s the problem we have. I’d like to see all of the families of Dreamers be protected,” he told reporters. Obama’s order does not cover the parents of illegal immigrants who came to the country illegally at a young age and were protected from...

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says he understands why President Obama will likely issue an executive order today providing temporary legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants. Harkin, a Democrat, blames the Republican-led U.S. House for its inaction on immigration. He notes, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill 18 months ago, a bill that hasn’t yet come up for debate in the House. “So, it’s forcing the president to do something on an executive basis, which, I would admit should be done legislatively, but the crisis is real and the president has to act, so keep that in mind.”...

President Obama has no choice but to act on his own on immigration reform because of the Republican Party’s inaction on the issue, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insisted Thursday. Republicans on Capitol Hill are up in arms ahead of Obama's prime-time speech Thursday night, when he's expected to unveil a plan to ease deportations of millions of illegal immigrants. The president will almost certainly frame his move in the context of keeping families intact. But Republicans are arguing it amounts to a power grab on Obama’s part. Pelosi said the president’s conservative critics should redirect their ire toward...

Thursday on the Senate floor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) used the words of philosopher and politician Marcus Cicero who advocated to return to a Republican government after the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar died. Cruz addressed the speech to President Obama using the words of Cicero saying: The words of Cicero powerfully relevant 2,077 years later. When, President Obama, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end to that unbridled audacity of yours swaggering about as it does now? Do not the nightly...

Pres. Obama's and the mainstream media's focus on "relief from deportation" is a distraction from the real issue which is the work permits that the President's executive immigration action would provide in the millions. It is the giving out of work permits that most strongly challenges the Constitution. And it is the work permits that deliver the most harm to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants already here. It is one thing to claim prosecutorial discretion in deciding not to deport somebody for breaking the law. It is quite another to actively reward that law-breaking foreign citizen with cards giving legal...