Obama unveils plan to assist undocumented immigrants avoid deportation

Obama unveils plan to assist undocumented immigrants avoid deportation

(NY DAILY NEWS)  WASHINGTON — President Obama announced extensive executive actions Thursday to spare nearly 5 million U.S. immigrants from deportation — making his case on sweeping moral grounds in a stirring appeal to the American character.

“Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms?” he asked. “Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?”

By bypassing Congress to order the widest-ranging change to immigration policy since 1986, Obama gave the left the bold action they craved and thumbed his nose at Republicans who had just captured control of the Senate and expanded their House majority.

The GOP fired back, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) declaring: “By ignoring the will of the American people, President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left.”

But the defiant move looks likely to help Democrats court Hispanic voters in 2016 and beyond, while leaving Republicans defensive and divided.

The President said his orders would refocus immigration enforcement on the undocumented who are threats to our security. “Felons, not families. Criminals, not children,” he said.

His biggest step will free from deportation more than 4 million parents who are in the country illegally but have children who are citizens or permanent residents.immig21n-2-web

Undocumented parents who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years, have no criminal history, pass a background check and have a child with legal status can receive three-year work permits with temporary assurance they won’t be deported.

In his 14-minute speech, Obama emphasized that his actions were legal — and said they also were rooted in American ideals of compassion. He cited Astrid Silva, brought to the U.S. at 4, who defied her parents’ fear of exposure to gain acceptance to a magnet school. She became an activist after she was unable to attend her grandmother’s funeral in Mexico because of fear of deportation.

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“Are we a nation that kicks out a striving, hopeful immigrant like Astrid — or are we a nation that finds a way to welcome her in?” he asked.

He name-checked former President George W. Bush — who said immigrants “are a part of American life” — and cited the Bible. “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too,” Obama said.

Appealing to a nation of immigrants, Obama said: “Whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in.”

Obama will also expand his 2012 order deferring deportation of people illegally brought to the U.S. as children. The order won’t cover their parents, as some advocates hoped.

It will not provide any exemption to allow undocumented farm workers to work legally. Senior White House officials said they determined they lacked legal authority to include those groups.

The President insisted as recently as last year that he lacked the power to overhaul deportation policy without Congress. But he now says precedent gives him ample authority to reset immigration enforcement priorities, as Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did.

The President argued that Republicans forced him to act by blocking a House vote on an immigration reform bill the Senate passed last year.

To congressional critics, Obama said: “I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

A few House Republicans have threatened to impeach Obama over his actions, while others have said they will sue.

More want to bar funding for the steps the President is announcing — an approach that creates the risk of a government shutdown.

But Democrats lauded the President.

The “reforms will initiate an economic, political and social transformation of our cities and our country,” Mayor de Blasio said, announcing a Dec. 8 summit of 20 mayors to discuss plans for implementing the orders.

And Rep. Jose Jose Serrano (D-Bronx) hailed the “bold” move to overhaul a broken immigration system.

“This is historic,” Serrano said. “This is really historic.”

 

Filed: 21st November, 2014

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