Immigration row fuels early 2016 US presidential race

Washington (AFP) – When President Barack Obama unveiled his immigration plan and Republican rivals howled their disapproval, the drama signaled not just a clash of political positions: it kicked off the 2016 presidential campaign.

Several likely Republican White House contenders — and a very prominent Democrat, Hillary Clinton — provided some of the most visible early reactions to the president’s controversial executive order.

Their statements helped draw the battle lines of Washington’s immigration warfare that is sure to extend all the way to the next national election, when Republicans will be seeking to end their eight-year White House drought.

And how both parties handle the deeply divisive issue may ultimately help decide who their next presidential nominees will be.

Obama’s Democrats appear eager to lock in the Hispanic vote early.

“I support the president’s decision to begin fixing our broken immigration system and focus finite resources on deporting felons rather than families,” Clinton, the 2016 Democratic frontrunner, said in a statement that earned attention in part for the swiftness of its release after Obama’s announcement.

Clinton often declines to weigh in quickly on sensitive issues, keeping her options open ahead of a likely declaration of her candidacy some time next year.

There was no hesitation on immigration, as she justified her support of the plan by calling congressional inaction an “abdication of responsibility” on the part of House Republicans.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a potential presidential challenger from the left, also said action was needed due to House Republicans failing to act after the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill last year.

“If House Republicans won’t do their jobs, it’s time for the president to do his,” she said.

Republicans claim they want to return the presidency to its constitutional principles and leave the legislating to Congress, a paramount guidepost for conservatives who feel Obama has abused his executive authority.

“President Obama is not above the law and has no right to issue executive amnesty,” Senator Rand Paul, a Tea Party favorite for 2016, said of Obama’s plan to temporarily shield millions of undocumented migrants from deportation.

“I will not sit idly by and let the president bypass Congress and our Constitution.”

- Crucial Hispanic vote -

Paul is likely in a tricky spot. For months, he has positioned himself as his party’s compassionate supporter of minority groups.

But opposing Obama’s plan could put Paul at odds with an increasingly influential Hispanic voting bloc, some 71 percent of whom voted for Obama in 2012.

And yet in order to win the nomination, Republican presidential contenders will need to prevail in primary races where core party values are front and center.

Conservatives, who largely oppose immigration reform, are often the all-important voters in Republican primaries.

The White House is well aware that an all-out sabotage of immigration reform by Republicans would not sit well with the broader American electorate.

“Reality check: No one who promises to reverse this executive order will be elected president in 2016,” David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to Obama, posted in a Republican-goading tweet.

Democrats may well have fast-tracked Obama’s deportation deferment in order to force Republicans into an internal war, pitting House Speaker John Boehner against his caucus’s rebellious conservative faction.

Boehner is aware that a conservative plan to insert anti-immigration language into must-pass spending bills could provoke a government shutdown, a potential disaster for Republicans just as the party takes control of both chambers of Congress next January following victory in midterm elections.

Squeezed in the middle are two Floridians: presidential brother Jeb Bush, a former state governor who has emerged as a leader of substance for the Republican Party, and Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican author of the Senate comprehensive immigration bill loathed by many conservatives.

Both are believed to be mulling White House runs.

Bush called Obama’s unilateral action “ill-advised,” but also said in a statement that “action must come in the form of bipartisan comprehensive reform passed through Congress.”

“We must demonstrate to Americans we are the party that will tackle serious challenges and build broad-based consensus.”

As potential candidates build their cases for succeeding Obama, the Democratic and Republican parties telegraphed the immigration debate’s importance: both fired off immigration-related fundraising emails to supporters within hours of Obama’s announcement.

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Immigration debate explodes despite voter desire for change

Far from settling matters, President Obama’s unilateral action on immigration all but ensures at least two more years of fierce and angry debate over one of the most contentious and polarizing issues facing the country.

It is a debate that presents opportunity and political risk to both parties, but especially Republicans, who are deeply divided among themselves and badly need to mend relations with a Latino and Asian American population growing bigger and more politically powerful each day.

And, with the loudest, most strident voices likely to dominate the discussion, it is a debate that will continue to mask a broad consensus among Americans, who want compromise and a fix to a decades-old problem — fashioned by Congress and the president working in tandem — rather than more of the partisan brick-throwing that has escalated over the past several days.

Exit polls this month found that nearly six in 10 voters supported legislation that would go further than Obama’s plan by establishing a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally — a striking ratio for a largely white, GOP-leaning electorate that swept Republicans to power across the country on Nov. 4.

Even here in Arizona, a state known for taking one of the hardest lines on illegal immigration, there is a strong desire to see the political skirmishing end.

“People want a solution,” said Chuck Coughlin, a GOP strategist who has advised two of the state’s top Republicans, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer, who have sometimes worked at cross-purposes on the issue. “They’re tired of the partisan stalemate and the finger-pointing by both sides.”

Immigration is a uniquely difficult and emotional issue, freighted with the weight of family ties and two broad, sometimes conflicting impulses. The United States, as the president suggested in his speech Thursday night, is both a land of laws and a nation of immigrants; squaring that circle and finding agreement somewhere in the middle has exceeded both the imagination and capacity of elected leaders for a generation.

Obama was never going to placate all sides by going it alone, a move he says was forced upon him by hostile, intransigent Republicans in Congress. What he has done, though, has heightened tensions in the short term and cast the conflict forward into the race to succeed him, placing every White House hopeful on the spot for the next two years.

Because Obama’s actions are not binding on his successor “the next president is going to have to decide whether to continue these policies after 2017,” said Matt Barreto, a University of Washington political scientist who conducts extensive polling among Latinos nationwide. “Whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Chris Christie or Marco Rubio, they’re all going to have to take a position, because it’s a policy that the next president, through his or her executive power, will be overseeing.”

The danger Democrats face is alienating the white working-class voters who have never much cared for the president and who could view the influx of newly hirable immigrants as unwelcome job competition.

Moreover there are voters of all stripe who recoil from the notion of rewarding — or at least excusing — those who break the law, which is how many critics portrayed the outcome of Obama’s single-handed move.

Earlier this month, on the same day that they legalized recreational marijuana, Oregon voters overwhelmingly rescinded a law that would have granted driver’s licenses to people in the country illegally — a sign that the immigration issue is fraught even in deeply blue states.

But balancing out those risks is the considerable upside for Democrats, who have increasingly come to rely on a large, enthusiastic turnout of Latino and Asia American supporters, especially in presidential races; it was no coincidence that Obama flew to Las Vegas on Friday for a rally to celebrate his executive action benefiting those communities.

Nevada, like next-door California, is a state that has been recast politically in recent years by a surge of Democratic-leaning Latino voters. They twice helped deliver the Silver State to Obama and boosted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the GOP landslide year of 2010; he could face another tough reelection fight in 2016.

For Republicans, the politics are more complicated.

The party has a dismal image among Latinos — nearly two-thirds believe Republicans either do not care about them or are openly hostile, according to a recent poll by Barreto’s firm, Latino Decisions — and, perhaps more problematic, there is a deep schism within the GOP over how, and even whether, to address the problem.

A substantial portion of the party base believes border security and unsparing enforcement of immigration laws are paramount and all that Republicans should pursue. (Given the unending appetite for conflict, these are the voices often featured on talk radio and the cable TV shows.)

Others in the party, including, most importantly, the business community, favor a definitive resolution that would normalize the status of immigrant workers in legal limbo and ensure a steady labor supply for industries such as agriculture through a reliable guest-worker program.

Some Republicans, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, another 2016 prospect, speak of the moral dimensions of fixing the immigration system. Crossing the border illegally in search of sustenance is “not a felony,” he has said. “It’s an act of love.” (He did, however, sharply criticize Obama’s unilateral move as one that “undermines all efforts to forge a permanent solution.”)

Arizona has spent years on the front line of the issue, as both a major entry point for people coming into the country illegally and the home of two of the debate’s most prominent participants: McCain, a longtime advocate of bipartisan overhaul legislation, and Brewer, who implemented a series of stiff crackdown measures that gained her nationwide celebrity, support and opprobrium.

Her newly elected successor, Republican state Treasurer and businessman Doug Ducey, has consciously shunned Brewer’s inflammatory approach, preferring to focus on economic development and other issues. He issued a brief, relatively measured statement Thursday after Obama’s immigration speech, urging cooperation toward a bipartisan solution.

By contrast, Brewer, who has spent much of her term jousting with Obama, released a blistering news release just moments into the president’s remarks, likening him to “a tyrannical king.” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has also clashed with the Obama administration over his aggressive prosecution of immigration laws, filed suit against the president before the sun had even risen over Arizona.

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Immigration reform: Who qualifies and who doesn't?

President Obama’s new set of immigration policies could affect up to 5 million people, including the possibility of a three-year reprieve from the threat of deportation for some parents of residents with legal status.

In addition, the administration has laid out important shifts in how agents will enforce immigration laws to focus more on deporting people with lengthy or violent criminal records, and less on people whose only crimes are immigration offenses. The new approach will end the dragnet system that enlisted local police in blowing the whistle on people here illegally.

However, the administration is not offering a path to legal status or citizenship. And the revamped policies won’t apply to most of the estimated 11.2 million people living in the country illegally.

Here’s a look at how the policies will work.

 Whom is the new plan designed to help?

The largest share are immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally and who have children who are citizens (nearly all children born in the U.S. are automatically citizens) or permanent legal residents. To be eligible, people have to have been living in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2010, and have no record of serious crimes that would make them a priority for removal.

A White House legal memo said this “would serve an important humanitarian interest in keeping parents together with children who are lawfully present in the United States.” Approved applicants will get permission to stay for three years. As many as 4.1 million people could fit the criteria, the administration estimates. The application will cost $465.

What about people who came to the U.S. as children?

The program expands the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that has protected 587,000 young people from removal. The new rules do away with an age limit and open the program to anyone here since 2010, instead of the old cutoff year of 2007. An estimated 300,000 additional young men and women would be eligible.

Does this mean these people will become legal residents?

No. As laid out by Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the administration is using its discretion in not targeting these immigrants for deportation. Absent other changes, such as a law passed by Congress, the immigrants could again go into illegal status after their temporary reprieves expire.

Where are most of these people from, and where do they live now?

About two-thirds are from Mexico, the source of most immigrants to the U.S. The biggest share of the eligible parents, more than 1.1 million, live in California, with the next biggest populations in Texas and Illinois.

What about the 6 million people who don’t qualify?

Some arrived in the U.S. too recently to qualify, but most are excluded because they didn’t have kids born here. According to the Pew Research Center, which studies immigration, about 85% of people who live here without authorization have been here for five years or more. That’s because illegal immigration has been down in recent years, said Jeff Passel, Pew’s senior demographer. The biggest share of the people who’ve lived here long enough but still don’t qualify are single men, he said. Others are married without kids. Some have children who were born elsewhere: For instance, parents of children born in Mexico and brought to the U.S. as toddlers aren’t eligible.

Is the new program open to parents of kids who’ve already received a reprieve under DACA?

No. Administration lawyers decided that was a bridge too far, without legal basis, since there would be no family member with legal status in the U.S. – only children with a temporary relief order. That decision disappointed some immigration activists, who point out that those families could be split up.

If someone met these qualifications – in the U.S. for five years, with American-born kids — but got deported, can they now apply to get back in?

No. Those cases are considered closed by immigration officials. As many as 250,000 to 300,000 people might fit that category, according to Randy Capps, director of research for the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute. However, the new policy says that people who are subject to deportation actions — even those who have received final removal orders, but are still in the U.S. — can apply to stay.

How will enforcement change under the new rules?

The administration says its top priority will be to go after border crossers and people considered dangerous, such as convicted felons and gang members. The second priority is people convicted of at least three misdemeanor crimes, or who have committed “significant” offenses such as domestic violence or drug trafficking.

At the bottom of the list: people who have committed no crimes other than illegally entering the country, particularly if they’ve been in the U.S. since Jan. 1 of this year. The administration is doing away with the much-derided Secure Communities program, which enlisted local police to hold unauthorized people on detainers for immigration agents. The government will still collect fingerprint data, though.

Who else could benefit?

Also in the works are changes to rules for granting visas for science and technology students, and changes to streamline the clunky and inflexible rules on work visas, to make it easier for people to switch jobs without jeopardizing their immigration status.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Times staff writers David G. Savage and Brian Bennett contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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Immigration reform's economic effect



Miao Wang, filmmaker



In an ironic twist, Chinese companies are now investing in US manufacturing, says Miao Wang, director of the documentary “Made by China in America.”




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Immigration: Where Obama, Bush differ

Washington (CNN) — When George W. Bush couldn’t get an immigration overhaul though the Senate, he gave up. When Barack Obama couldn’t get a bill through the House, he changed the rules.

Rewriting the immigration system was at the core of Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” political brand and was dear to his heart.

“It didn’t work,” a deflated Bush said on a June day seven years ago when the comprehensive reform effort finally died on Capitol Hill.

Obama: We were strangers once too

Obama: We’ll deport felons, not families

Past presidents’ use of executive power

GOP: Obama will regret immigration order

‘DREAMer’ reacts to Obama announcement

Faced with failure, he asked his team if he could reshape the immigration system with his own executive power, but they concluded he couldn’t. So Bush — a president who fought the war on terror with an expansive interpretation of executive power — moved on to other things for his last 18 months in office.

Obama refuses to accept the same fate.

READ: Obama: ‘You can come out of the shadows’

When immigration reform died in Congress this year, Obama, like Bush, asked his lawyers if he could change the system on his own. This White House team came to the opposite conclusion.

So, more than 500 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, Obama unveiled his plan to go it alone.

In a prime-time address, he announced he would wield executive power to patch up the system as best he could, temporarily shielding up to five million people from the threat of deportation.

He said he had no choice but to go ahead — despite furious claims by Republicans he is subverting the Constitution and behaving more like a king than a weakened president hemmed in by a hostile Congress.

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress have failed, I have one answer. Pass a bill,” Obama said.

The president plans to offer temporary relief from deportation to the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have been in the country for more than five years. He’ll also extend a program that already allows undocumented migrants brought here as children to stay in the country.

READ: Republicans hammer legal case against Obama

The measures are far short of the fix that Obama had hoped a permanent comprehensive immigration bill would provide. And since he was forced to act via executive order, his moves could be wiped out with the stroke of a pen by a future president.

But it’s clear that Obama is motivated by far more than the prosaic business of fixing the broken immigration system.

In the two weeks since the Republican rout in the mid-term elections dealt what many had thought was a killer blow to his presidency, Obama has been working at a furious pace. A president who believes he was elected twice to engineer change is not giving up just because Congress is in his way.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner is noticing and warning of retribution.

“President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left,” Boehner said.

Reforming immigration was always on Obama’s mind when he took office.

“It was on the big bucket list of why he was running for president,” said a White House official. “Climate, immigration and health care were problems that have eluded presidents for decades.”

“He really thought he had an opportunity to take on all three,” the official said. “It looks like he is going to make progress on all three.”

Events that led to Thursday night’s address had been unfolding for months, a factor that may explain the noticeable lack of drama surrounding Obama’s announcement.

WATCH: McConnell: Executive action ignores law

There was none of the excruciating tension or euphoria that greeted other signature moments of the Obama presidency — like the killing of Osama bin Laden, or the passage of health care reform.

Senior administration officials confided that Obama signed off on the final details of the plan when he got back from Asia this week. But administration lawyers had been beavering away for months to flesh out legal justifications.

Many in the White House had thought that it would never get to this point.

In June 2013, when the Senate bill passed, administration insiders thought that the House would put a new law on Obama’s desk to sign.

Officials reasoned that if the Republican Party was ever going to capture the White House again, it needed to mend fences with Hispanic voters after Mitt Romney was wiped out among the crucial voting block in 2012.

“It was clear there was going to be momentum for this,” the official said.

Knowing his political brand was radioactive for Boehner, Obama deliberately stepped back in the days after the Senate bill passed.

But his patience began to fray as the months dragged on.

All the time, Obama was feeling heat from immigration activists in his liberal political base — so much so that he made a series of statements to the effect that he couldn’t just lash out and fix immigration on his own.

Those comments — intended to give the House space to do its work — have instead come back to haunt him and are ammunition for Republicans who say Obama knows he is breaking the law.

In the end, it seems Boehner did not believe his position was sustainable atop a restive Republican caucus if he used Democratic votes to pass a bill

A separate senior White House official said Thursday that the administration had concluded there was no point waiting any longer because Boehner would not promise to bring up a new bill in the new Congress.

“I don’t think there will be a moment when the Republicans won’t say ‘just wait another day,’ the official said.

The showdown that precipitated Thursday’s speech happened back in June.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were in the White House at a PGA Tour event — which might have been a rare moment for Boehner and Obama to bond over one of the few passions they share: golf.

READ: Transcript of Obama’s address

But afterwards, the president was seething because Boehner told him he would not be sending him a bill on immigration. The Speaker later said he told the president that the American people simply “don’t trust him to enforce the law as written.”

The decision came against a backdrop of a boiling crisis on the southern border as thousands of child migrants were teeming across the border.

Republicans charged the human tide was triggered directly by the President’s earlier executive order that offered certain categories of Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought the nation as children — relief from deportation.

In a mid-term election year, Republicans had also been spooked by the stunning primary loss of Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor, who was accused by his insurgent opponent of being too soft on “amnesty.”

Obama snapped in an event a few days later in a Rose Garden speech.

“Pass a bill; solve a problem. Don’t just say no on something that everybody needs to be done,” he said.


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Immigration: A tale of two presidents

Washington (CNN) — When George W. Bush couldn’t get an immigration overhaul though the Senate, he gave up. When Barack Obama couldn’t get a bill through the House, he changed the rules.

Rewriting the immigration system was at the core of Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” political brand and was dear to his heart.

“It didn’t work,” a deflated Bush said on a June day seven years ago when the comprehensive reform effort finally died on Capitol Hill.

Obama: We’ll deport felons, not families

Obama: We were strangers once too

Past presidents’ use of executive power

GOP: Obama will regret immigration order

‘DREAMer’ reacts to Obama announcement

Faced with failure, he asked his team if he could reshape the immigration system with his own executive power, but they concluded he couldn’t. So Bush — a president who fought the war on terror with an expansive interpretation of executive power — moved on to other things for his last 18 months in office.

Obama refuses to accept the same fate.

READ: Obama: ‘You can come out of the shadows’

When immigration reform died in Congress this year, Obama, like Bush, asked his lawyers if he could change the system on his own. This White House team came to the opposite conclusion.

So, more than 500 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, Obama unveiled his plan to go it alone.

In a prime-time address, he announced he would wield executive power to patch up the system as best he could, temporarily shielding up to five million people from the threat of deportation.

He said he had no choice but to go ahead — despite furious claims by Republicans he is subverting the Constitution and behaving more like a king than a weakened president hemmed in by a hostile Congress.

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress have failed, I have one answer. Pass a bill,” Obama said.

The president plans to offer temporary relief from deportation to the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have been in the country for more than five years. He’ll also extend a program that already allows undocumented migrants brought here as children to stay in the country.

READ: Republicans hammer legal case against Obama

The measures are far short of the fix that Obama had hoped a permanent comprehensive immigration bill would provide. And since he was forced to act via executive order, his moves could be wiped out with the stroke of a pen by a future president.

But it’s clear that Obama is motivated by far more than the prosaic business of fixing the broken immigration system.

In the two weeks since the Republican rout in the mid-term elections dealt what many had thought was a killer blow to his presidency, Obama has been working at a furious pace. A president who believes he was elected twice to engineer change is not giving up just because Congress is in his way.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner is noticing and warning of retribution.

“President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left,” Boehner said.

Reforming immigration was always on Obama’s mind when he took office.

“It was on the big bucket list of why he was running for president,” said a White House official. “Climate, immigration and health care were problems that have eluded presidents for decades.”

“He really thought he had an opportunity to take on all three,” the official said. “It looks like he is going to make progress on all three.”

Events that led to Thursday night’s address had been unfolding for months, a factor that may explain the noticeable lack of drama surrounding Obama’s announcement.

WATCH: McConnell: Executive action ignores law

There was none of the excruciating tension or euphoria that greeted other signature moments of the Obama presidency — like the killing of Osama bin Laden, or the passage of health care reform.

Senior administration officials confided that Obama signed off on the final details of the plan when he got back from Asia this week. But administration lawyers had been beavering away for months to flesh out legal justifications.

Many in the White House had thought that it would never get to this point.

In June 2013, when the Senate bill passed, administration insiders thought that the House would put a new law on Obama’s desk to sign.

Officials reasoned that if the Republican Party was ever going to capture the White House again, it needed to mend fences with Hispanic voters after Mitt Romney was wiped out among the crucial voting block in 2012.

“It was clear there was going to be momentum for this,” the official said.

Knowing his political brand was radioactive for Boehner, Obama deliberately stepped back in the days after the Senate bill passed.

But his patience began to fray as the months dragged on.

All the time, Obama was feeling heat from immigration activists in his liberal political base — so much so that he made a series of statements to the effect that he couldn’t just lash out and fix immigration on his own.

Those comments — intended to give the House space to do its work — have instead come back to haunt him and are ammunition for Republicans who say Obama knows he is breaking the law.

In the end, it seems Boehner did not believe his position was sustainable atop a restive Republican caucus if he used Democratic votes to pass a bill

A separate senior White House official said Thursday that the administration had concluded there was no point waiting any longer because Boehner would not promise to bring up a new bill in the new Congress.

“I don’t think there will be a moment when the Republicans won’t say ‘just wait another day,’ the official said.

The showdown that precipitated Thursday’s speech happened back in June.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were in the White House at a PGA Tour event — which might have been a rare moment for Boehner and Obama to bond over one of the few passions they share: golf.

READ: Transcript of Obama’s address

But afterwards, the president was seething because Boehner told him he would not be sending him a bill on immigration. The Speaker later said he told the president that the American people simply “don’t trust him to enforce the law as written.”

The decision came against a backdrop of a boiling crisis on the southern border as thousands of child migrants were teeming across the border.

Republicans charged the human tide was triggered directly by the President’s earlier executive order that offered certain categories of Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought the nation as children — relief from deportation.

In a mid-term election year, Republicans had also been spooked by the stunning primary loss of Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor, who was accused by his insurgent opponent of being too soft on “amnesty.”

Obama snapped in an event a few days later in a Rose Garden speech.

“Pass a bill; solve a problem. Don’t just say no on something that everybody needs to be done,” he said.


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Obama immigration action: Is it about people, or process?

To President Obama, the sweeping immigration overhaul he announced in a speech to the nation on Thursday night is focused on people. It’s about helping the people who pick our fruit, build our bridges, and clean our houses come out from the shadows. It’s about allowing mothers and fathers to stay with their children.

“Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families and works to keep them together?” Mr. Obama said in perhaps the most emotion-laden passage of his address.

To newly empowered Republicans, the attention of the nation should be focused on the president’s process on immigration. Obama does not lawfully have the power to order changes to the extent that he did, in their view. It’s an abuse of the governmental system established by the Founding Fathers that could set a dangerous precedent for presidents to come.

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

“The president seems intent on provoking a constitutional crisis by adopting policies that he previously said were illegal,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas.

It’s this juxtaposition – people versus process – that will define the coming political immigration war. And war it will be, rhetorically speaking. Obama has set off an explosion as the GOP readies to take control of both chambers of Congress in 2015 by doing something that infuriates them on an issue they warned him to leave be.

In part, that is because their party may be divided by the response. Establishment Republicans have tried to rule out using the congressional power of the purse to shut down the government in response to the immigration actions. But the conservative tea party wing of the GOP sees that as a lack of conviction, not prudence.

“If the GOP really thought this were a constitutional crisis, they would act like it,” writes conservative commentator Erick Erickson Friday on his personal blog.

Obama’s announcement on Thursday was the culmination of months of emotional buildup in Washington on the immigration issue. In the end, his moves were slightly less sweeping than some had hoped, or feared.

As expected, the centerpiece was an order that the undocumented parents of children who are American citizens or have green cards are protected from deportation and eligible for green cards for at least three years. Under this provision, the children do not have to be minors, but the parents must pass a background check.

Obama also extended the deadline for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which he launched in 2012. This program shields from deportation minors who were brought here illegally as children. Previously, the children in question had to have arrived in the United States prior to 2007; Obama on Thursday extended that to 2010.

However, the parents of DACA kids are not eligible for deportation relief under Obama’s actions. The Department of Justice ruled that was a step too far for presidential power.

Obama also said he would replace the Secure Communities program, which hands people arrested for local crimes over to federal authorities. He vowed to increase resources to protect the border and try to keep more undocumented immigrants from entering the country.

“We shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger: We were strangers once, too,” said Obama in his speech, in a biblical reference.

The executive actions could save about 5 million from deportation, at least for the time being.

As a political matter, Obama’s focus on the human impact of his moves is understandable. Americans take a favorable view of immigration in general, and large majorities of US citizens say they would take a lenient approach to undocumented immigrants – again, in general.

A 2013 Pew poll found that 71 percent of respondents said there should be a way for those in the country illegally to stay, for instance.

By the same measure, the GOP response is understandable. The public may be forgiving toward people, but it’s not happy about the process Obama has used.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 38 percent of respondents approve of Obama taking executive action on immigration, while 48 percent oppose it.

“Not surprisingly, these numbers largely break along partisan lines: 63 percent of Democrats approve of Obama taking executive action here, versus just 11 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of independents,” writes NBC’s Mark Murray.

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Obama vows 'more fair and just' US immigration

Washington (AFP) – Pledging to fix America’s “broken” immigration system, President Barack Obama offered five million undocumented migrants protection from deportation, allowing families to emerge from the shadows and seek work permits.

In a move that infuriated his Republican critics and drew unspecified pledges to counter it, Obama said nearly all undocumented people living in the country for more than five years and who have a child who is a US citizen or legal permanent resident can apply for a three-year work authorization.

The president also broadened the program he launched in 2012 that provides temporary residency to young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before the age of 16.

“There are actions I have the legal authority to take as president — the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican presidents before me — that will help make our immigration system more fair and more just,” Obama said in a 15-minute speech broadcast from the White House.

The order will affect about 44 percent of the 11.3 million people — mostly from Mexico and Central America — living in the United States illegally and doing menial jobs that most Americans snubb.

“Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law?” he asked.

But he quickly stressed that the sweeping order, the most comprehensive immigration step in years, “does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive.

“Only Congress can do that,” he added. “All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.”

Obama’s executive order shifts US policy from a dragnet approach to all illegal immigrants to a focus on deporting convicted felons and those who pose a danger to society.

People living and working illegally in the country and who meet the criteria can apply for deferred deportation from next spring, the White House said.

- Mass deportation ‘impossible’ -

For much of this year, Republicans have warned that unilateral action on immigration would be an illegal and unconstitutional amnesty of millions of undocumented people.

But Obama shot back, saying he was taking needed action while congressional Republicans dithered.

“Mass amnesty would be unfair. Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character,” Obama said.

The president invoked the centuries-old history of America as a compassionate nation of immigrants and described his plan as “commonsense” accountability.

But in his words lay a warning, and a message to lawmakers that he would stand tough on immigration law.

“If you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported. If you plan to enter the US illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up,” he said.

Since 1986, when then-Republican president Ronald Reagan granted a sweeping amnesty, all attempts at major reform of the country’s immigration system have failed.

Faced with congressional stalemate, Obama — who made immigration a top priority on taking office in 2009 — has decided, with two years left in the White House, to take the matter into his own hands.

Under the new rules, those applying for deferred action must have a clean criminal record, pass a background check, and pay taxes.

The plan expands the program allowing temporary residency cards for minors to include those of all ages, provided they arrived in country prior to January 1, 2010 and were 16 or younger when they entered.

And it also eases legal immigration rules for high-tech workers and students in “STEM” fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

- Storm brewing in Congress -

A new immigration law did pass the then-Democratically controlled Senate last year, but the Republican House of Representatives blocked it and failed to agree on its own alternative proposal.

Republicans, who will control both House and Senate in January after a huge win in this month’s midterm elections, say Obama is going too far.

Incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Thursday that the new Congress will exact political retribution.

“If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act,” he said.

Obama will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada on Friday to further explain his immigration orders. The state is home to many undocumented Latinos.

The Republican National Committee derided the president’s action as an outright amnesty ordered unconstitutionally by a “one-man legislature.” It urged party supporters who oppose the reform to contribute money to the party to help fight the order.

The political firestorm unleashed by Obama does not bode well for relations between Congress and the White House in the coming months.

Republicans cannot halt a presidential decree, but they can make Obama’s last two years extremely difficult — by blocking his choices for ambassadorial and administration posts, as well as judgeships.

But with the 2016 presidential election on the horizon, the debate within the Republican Party on immigration will be lively, as it can ill afford to offend Hispanic voters, 70 percent of whom voted for Obama in 2012.

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On immigration, a tale of 2 presidents

Washington (CNN) — When George W. Bush couldn’t get an immigration overhaul though the Senate, he gave up. When Barack Obama couldn’t get a bill through the House, he changed the rules.

Rewriting the immigration system was at the core of Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” political brand and was dear to his heart.

“It didn’t work” a deflated Bush said on a June day seven years ago when the comprehensive reform effort finally died on Capitol Hill.

Media strategy behind immigration speech

What exactly is an ‘executive action’?

GOP: Obama will regret immigration order

Faced with failure, he asked his team if he could reshape the immigration system with his own executive power, but they concluded he couldn’t. So Bush — a president who fought the war on terror with an expansive interpretation of executive power — moved on to other things for his last 18 months in office.

Obama refuses to accept the same fate.

READ: Obama: ‘You can come out of the shadows’

When immigration reform died in Congress this year, Obama, like Bush asked his lawyers if he could change the system on his own. This White House team came to the opposite conclusion.

So, more than 500 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, Obama unveiled his plan to go it alone.

In a prime-time address, he announced he would wield executive power to patch up the system as best he could, temporarily shielding up to five million people from the threat of deportation.

He said he had no choice but to go ahead — despite furious claims by Republicans he is subverting the Constitution and behaving more like a king than a weakened president hemmed in by a hostile Congress.

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress have failed, I have one answer. Pass a bill,” Obama said.

The president plans to offer temporary relief from deportation to the parents of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for more than five years. He’ll also extend a program that already allows undocumented migrants brought here as children to stay in the country.

READ: Republicans hammer legal case against Obama

The measures are far short of the fix that Obama had hoped a permanent comprehensive immigration bill would provide. And since he was forced to act via executive order, his moves could be wiped out with the stroke of a pen by a future president.

But it’s clear that Obama is motivated by far more than the prosaic business of fixing the broken immigration system.

In the two weeks since the Republican rout in the mid-term elections dealt what many had thought was a killer blow to his presidency, Obama has been working at a furious pace. A president who believes he was elected twice to engineer change is not giving up just because Congress is in his way.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner is noticing and warning of retribution.

“President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left,” Boehner said.

Reforming immigration was always on Obama’s mind when he took office.

“It was on the big bucket list of why he was running for president,” said a White House official. “Climate, immigration and health care were problems that have eluded presidents for decades.”

“He really thought he had an opportunity to take on all three,” the official said. “It looks like he is going to make progress on all three.”

Events that led to Thursday night’s address had been unfolding for months, a factor that may explain the noticeable lack of drama surrounding Obama’s announcement.

WATCH: McConnell: Executive action ignores law

There was none of the excruciating tension or euphoria that greeted other signature moments of the Obama presidency — like the killing of Osama bin Laden, or the passage of health care reform.

Senior administration officials confided that Obama signed off on the final details of the plan when he got back from Asia this week. But administration lawyers had been beavering away for months to flesh out legal justifications.

Many in the White House had thought that it would never get to this point.

In June 2013, when the Senate bill passed, administration insiders thought that the House would put a new law on Obama’s desk to sign.

Officials reasoned that if the Republican Party was ever going to capture the White House again, it needed to mend fences with Hispanic voters after Mitt Romney was wiped out among the crucial voting block in 2012.

“It was clear there was going to be momentum for this,” the official said.

Knowing his political brand was radioactive for Boehner, Obama deliberately stepped back in the days after the Senate bill passed.

But his patience began to fray as the months dragged on.

All the time, Obama was feeling heat from immigration activists in his liberal political base — so much so that he made a series of statements to the effect that he couldn’t just lash out and fix immigration on his own.

Those comments — intended to give the House space to do its work — have instead come back to haunt him and are ammunition for Republicans who say Obama knows he is breaking the law.

In the end, it seems Boehner did not believe his position was sustainable atop a restive Republican caucus if he used Democratic votes to pass a bill

A separate senior White House official said Thursday that the administration had concluded there was no point waiting any longer because Boehner would not promise to bring up a new bill in the new Congress.

“I don’t think there will be a moment when the Republicans won’t say ‘just wait another day,’ the official said.

The showdown that precipitated Thursday’s speech happened back in June.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were in the White House at a PGA Tour event — which might have been a rare moment for Boehner and Obama to bond over one of the few passions they share: golf.

READ: Transcript of Obama’s address

But afterwards, the president was seething because Boehner told him he would not be sending him a bill on immigration. The Speaker later said he told the president that the American people simply “don’t trust him to enforce the law as written.”

The decision came against a backdrop of a boiling crisis on the southern border as thousands of child migrants were teeming across the border.

Republicans charged the human tide was triggered directly by the President’s earlier executive order that offered certain categories of Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought the nation as children — relief from deportation.

In a mid-term election year, Republicans had also been spooked by the stunning primary loss of Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor, who was accused by his insurgent opponent of being too soft on “amnesty.”

Obama snapped in an event a few days later in a Rose Garden speech.

“Pass a bill; solve a problem. Don’t just say no on something that everybody needs to be done,” he said.


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Obama facing opposition to immigration plan being outlined Thursday night

WASHINGTON (AP) — Spurning furious Republicans, President Barack Obama unveiled expansive executive actions on immigration Thursday night to spare nearly 5 million people in the U.S. illegally from deportation and refocus enforcement efforts on “felons, not families.”

The moves, affecting mostly parents and young people, marked the most sweeping changes to the nation’s fractured immigration laws in nearly three decades and set off a fierce fight with Republicans over the limits of presidential powers.

In a televised address to the nation, Obama defended the legality of his actions and challenged GOP lawmakers to focus their energy not on blocking his measures but on approving long-stalled legislation to take their place.

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill,” Obama said, flexing his presidential powers just two weeks after his political standing was challenged in the midterm elections.

As Obama spoke from the White House, immigration supporters with American flags draped over their shoulders marched on Pennsylvania Avenue outside carrying signs that read, “Gracias, Presidente Obama.”

The address marked the first step in the White House effort to promote the executive actions to the public. On Friday, Obama will speak at a campaign-style rally in Las Vegas.

Despite Obama’s challenge to Republicans to pass a broader immigration bill, his actions and the angry GOP response could largely stamp out those prospects for the remainder of his presidency, ensuring that the contentious debate will carry on into the 2016 elections.

Republicans, emboldened by their sweeping victories in the midterms, are weighing responses to the president’s actions that include lawsuits, a government shutdown, and in rare instances, even impeachment.

“The president will come to regret the chapter history writes if he does move forward,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is soon to become the Senate majority leader, said before Obama’s address.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who has refused to have his members vote on broad immigration legislation passed by the Senate last year, said Obama’s decision to go it alone “cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left.”

While Obama’s measures are sweeping in scope, they still leave more than half of the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally in limbo. The president announced new deportation priorities that would compel law enforcement to focus its efforts on tracking down serious criminals and people who have recently crossed the border, while specifically placing a low priority on those who have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years.

The president spent months trying to gain a House vote on the Senate bill, frustrating immigration advocates and some Democrats who wanted him to instead take action on his own. While Obama had long insisted that his powers to halt deportations were limited, the White House began seriously exploring options for unilateral action.

Still, that process has been beset by delays, especially Obama’s decision to hold off on announcing the executive orders until after the midterms. Some Democrats had feared that thrusting the immigration debate to the forefront of the campaign would hurt their chances of keeping control of the Senate, though the White House’s delay ultimately did little to stem their defeats.

Obama insisted that his actions did not amount to amnesty.

“Amnesty is the immigration system we have today — millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time,” he said.

The main beneficiaries of the president’s actions are immigrants who have been in the U.S. illegally for more than five years but whose children are citizens or lawful permanent residents. After passing background checks and paying fees, those individuals will soon be able to seek relief from deportation and get work permits. The administration expects about 4.1 million people to qualify.

Obama is also broadening his 2012 directive that deferred deportation for some young immigrants who entered the country illegally. Obama will expand eligibility to people who arrived in the U.S. as minors before 2010, instead of the current cutoff of 2007, and will lift the requirement that applicants be under 31. The expansion is expected to affect about 300,000 people.

Applications for the new deportation deferrals will begin in the spring. Those who qualify would be granted deferrals for three years at a time.

Immigration-rights activists gathered at watch parties around the country to listen to the president announce actions they have sought for years.

“This is a great day for farmworkers. It’s been worth the pain and sacrifice,” said Jesus Zuniga, a 40-year-old who picks tomatoes in California’s Central Valley and watched the speech at a union gathering in Fresno.

In New York City, however, a couple of protesters held “no amnesty” signs outside a New York union office where advocates of the president’s plan were gathering to watch him and celebrate.

“We have a lot of unemployed Americans right now, and I don’t understand why unemployed Americans can’t be hired to do the jobs these illegals are doing,” said John Wilson, who works in contract management.

The White House insists Obama has the legal authority to halt deportations for parents and for people who came to the U.S. as children, primarily on humanitarian grounds. Officials also cited precedents set by previous immigration executive actions by Democratic and Republican presidents dating back to Dwight Eisenhower.

A senior administration official said the decision to protect parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents is in line with an existing law that allows adult citizens to sponsor their parents for immigration. Obama’s plan goes a step further because the sponsoring citizen doesn’t have to be an adult.

GOP lawmakers disagree with Obama’s claims of legal authority, calling his actions an unconstitutional power grab.

Republicans are weighing a range of responses, including filing legal challenges and using must-pass spending legislation this fall to try to stop Obama’s effort. One lawmaker — Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama — has raised the specter of impeachment.

GOP leaders have warned against such talk and are seeking to avoid spending-bill tactics that could lead to a government shutdown. They say such moves could backfire, angering many voters and alienating Hispanics for the next presidential election.

___

Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Alicia A. Caldwell, Jim Kuhnhenn, Donna Cassata and Josh Lederman in Washington, Scott Smith in Fresno, California, and Jennifer Peltz in New York City contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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