President Obama’s Immigration Threat Is Politically Naive And Unrealistic

President Obama's threat to take action on immigration if Congress doesn't act by the end of the year ignores political reality,

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Sunday during an interview on Face The Nation, President Obama repeated an ultimatum that he had laid down in the days after the Republican’s sweeping election victories in the midterms:

President Barack Obama said on Sunday that he will pursue an executive order on immigration reform and that congressional Republicans can take further action if they so please.

“I’m going to do what I can do through executive action,” Obama said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s not going to be everything that needs to get done. And it will take time to put that in place.”

“And in the interim, the minute they pass a bill that addresses the problems of immigration reform, I will sign it and it supersedes whatever actions I take,” the president continued. “I’m encouraging them.”

Obama laid blame for his forthcoming executive order at the feet of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for failing to allow a vote on the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed with a bipartisan majority in the Senate.

“I preside over a process in which the Senate produced a bipartisan bill. I then said to John Boehner, ‘John, let’s get this passed through the House,'” Obama told “Face the Nation” host Bob Scheiffer. “For a year, I stood back and let him work on this. He decided not to call the Senate bill and he couldn’t produce his own bill. And I told him at the time, ‘John, if you don’t do it, I’ve got legal authority to make improvements on the system. I prefer to see it done through Congress, but every day that I wait we’re misallocating resources, we’re deporting people that don’t need to be deported.'”

The president said he then laid out his final deadline for House Republicans. “If you can’t get it done before the end of the year, I’m going to have to take the steps that I can to improve the system,” he said he told Boehner.

This isn’t anything new for the President, of course. Back at the end of July as Congress was preparing to leave for its summer recess, the President said that he had asked his advisers to put together a set of proposals for executive action that he could take under existing laws to provide some kind of relief for people impacted by what he has long, and largely correctly, characterized as a broken immigration system that doesn’t work for people who try to come her legally as well as creating the problem of a huge shadow economy of undocumented immigrants. While there’s been no real discussion about what this executive action might entail, speculation has centered mostly around directions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize deportation efforts on people who have committed violent crimes or immigration fraud that has victimized large numbers of people along with some kind of expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was adopted back in 2012. Neither proposal could be made permanent, of course, and would always be subject to reversal by Congress or a subsequent President, but they would go a long way toward providing some relief in the most extreme cases of people subjected to immigration laws that, in many cases, make no sense at all.

Initially, the White House said that the intention was to introduce the planned executive action at some point at the end of the summer, and before the midterm elections. However, thanks largely to pressure behind the scenes from vulnerable Democratic Senators such as Mark Udall, Mark Pryor, and Mary Landreiu, the White House announced out of the blue that there would be no action taken before the midterm election. The only thing that this decision seemed to accomplish, though, was to annoy Latino voters. It certainly didn’t help Democratic incumbents like Udall or Pryor, and it probably isn’t going to save Landreiu from an expected loss in the December 6th runoff election between her and Congressman Bill Cassidy. As we got closer to the election, there were even some rumors that the President might not take any action at all before the end of the year. Now, both in his comments last week and in this interview, the President is purporting to threaten Congress with action he says he will take even though, thanks to the election results, it can hardly be said that he’s arguing from a position of strength, or that his demands on the Speaker at this point are particularly reasonable under the circumstances. The fact that, after the President first set this end of the year deadline last week, the Speaker was quick to argue that unilateral executive action at this point would “poison the well” with the new Congress was a warning to the President that, based on his interview the Bob Schieffer, the President doesn’t seem to be taking to heart just yet.

Andrew Sullivan is among those who argues that the President’s new position is not the correct strategy:

The threat makes sense as a way to bring the GOP to the table, but not if he fully intends to follow through before the end of the year regardless. Instead of forcing the GOP to come up with a compromise bill – which if it can, great, and if it cannot, will split the GOP in two – he’d merely recast the debate around whether he is a “lawless dictator”, etc etc. rather than whether it is humane or rational to keep millions of people in illegal limbo indefinitely. It would strengthen those dead-ender factions in the House that are looking for an excuse to impeach. It would unify the GOP on an issue where it is, in fact, deeply divided. And it would not guarantee a real or durable solution to the clusterfuck.

(…)

In other words, it makes much more sense to me for Obama to ask the GOP for a major legislative proposal before he takes any unilateral action. If they fail to do so – and it’s perfectly possible they do, given intense divisions within their ranks – then Obama’s executive action makes much more sense and can be defended much more easily, as a response to Congressional failure. But to pre-empt this with a divisive act that would polarize the country still further would make no long-term progress likely and put the blame for gridlock on his shoulders, rather than the GOP’s. And what good would that do?What I’m saying is that he should precisely “wait” some more before acting on this. He’s waited long enough to make another six months’ delay, while he demands a bill to sign, a perfectly palatable option. If he accepts another bucketload of efforts to secure the border as part of the deal, his position remains more popular than the GOP’s with the center and the Latino population. And the real goal of all this is legislation that can guarantee citizenship, better immigration criteria and a secure border beyond any president’s executive orders or revised regulations. Unilateralism can make that less likely rather than more.

Sullivan is largely correct here. Even if one believes that the House should have taken up the Senate immigration bill when it was completed and reported out last year, or that it should have put together its own bill at some point over the past year as groups ranging from Evangelical and Catholic religious organization and the Chamber of Commerce have been urging it to do, the fact of the matter is that last week’s elections have changed the game in Washington to such a degree that it would simply be impossible for Republicans to comply with the President’s deadline in any realistic fashion. Even before the election, the odds that the House would actually have approved the Senate bill were, I think, far lower than many pundits and advocates believed they were. For one thing, the hypothesis that Republicans would feel more free to vote yes once they were past the point at which they could be challenged in a primary ignores the fact that, for many activists, this is the kind of vote that wouldn’t be forgotten easily and could become an issue in a primary challenge down the road in the 2016. For another, I’m not so certain that House Democrats would have been as willing to help the GOP Leadership out in getting his bill passed as their own leaders have repeatedly represented. After all, it would be better to let the bill die at Republican hands and use it as a campaign issue than to take the issue off the table by letting the Senate bill become law.

With the election, though, it seems clear that everything has changed. The Senate that approved the 2013 bill has been voted out of office and it seems highly unlikely that the bill would make it through the new Senate in its present form. Moreover, that bill will die at the end of the 113th Congress if the House doesn’t act. After that, both chambers of Congress, which will now be controlled by the Republicans, will have to come up with some new bill that may resemble the Senate bill in some respects, but which will obviously have to differ from it in other ways, in some ceases quite significant ways. If there is going to be immigration reform in the 114th Congress, then, it will largely be guided by Republican priorities far more than the 2013 Senate bill was. President Obama is no doubt aware of this, which may be way he’s daring the GOP to do something by the end of the year, but in setting that deadline he’s really not giving Republicans a reasonable choice at all. Trying to push through immigration now, when there are many members of the House who will not be part of the new Congress and the Senate will not even be representative of what the American people voted into office just last Tuesday, may sound like strong, forceful political rhetoric but it’s completely unrealistic on President Obama’s part and can only be characterized as a plan guaranteed to set his relationship with the new Congress off on the precisely wrong foot, or a bluff that the President will eventually cave on and thus hand the GOP a victory on the eve of its assumption of greater power that he really did not need to hand them. It also seems to betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the person sitting across the table from him. Speaker Boehner has had enough difficulty over the years in dragging his caucus along on deals made with this White House, given the outcome of the election it would seem next to impossible for him to do it this time around. Thus, there is no rational reason for Boehner to go to the mat for the President on this issue, because all it would do is undercut his credibility with his fellow Republicans before he’s even had a chance to utilize it in the new Congress.

I tend to agree with those who argue that we need to get immigration reform passed sooner rather than later, and based on what I’ve read about the speculation of what it might entail I probably would not have much of a problem with the substance of the President’s planned executive action. At the same time, though, politics requires one to be realistic about what can be achieved and its been obvious for some time that immigration reform died in the 113th Congress some time ago and that it certainly isn’t going to get passed into law during the coming lame duck session. Anyone who expects otherwise simply isn’t paying attention to political reality. Because of that, President Obama’s deadline for action by the end of the year is completely unrealistic, and in the end the kind of politically tone deaf move that would end up causing more damage, both to the cause of immigration reform itself and the relationship between the Executive and Legislative Branches going forward between now and the end of the President’s term, than it is worth. The President has already waited four months since making his threat of executive action, and nearly eighteen months since the Senate passed its version of immigration reform. He can afford to wait a little bit longer, allow the new Congress to gavel into session, and give them some reasonable amount of time to come up with at least a proposal for reform if not a completed bill. Acting sooner than that is just likely to guarantee that no such bill will be forthcoming and that that the issue of immigration reform will continue to languish without anyone acting on it. Of course, given the advantage that such a development gives his party with Latino voters, perhaps that’s exactly what the President wants.

FILED UNDER: 2014 Election, Borders and Immigration, Congress, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. al-Ameda says:

    Acting sooner than that is just likely to guarantee that no such bill will be forthcoming and that that the issue of immigration reform will continue to languish without anyone acting on it. Of course, given the advantage that such a development gives his party with Latino voters, perhaps that’s exactly what the President wants.

    I watched Face The Nation yesterday and it was interesting and predictable to hear Gergen, Noonan and Woodward wring their hands at what Obama has said and done since the election. It was all about how the president needs to make peace with the new GOP majorities. Never mind any context whatsoever. Of course Senator McConnell talks about the president poisoning the well, however he really didn’t much mind polluting the well from 2009 to 2014.

    None of those 3 pundits had the insight (honesty?) to suggest that just maybe, maybe, the president is using what little leverage he has to prod the GOP into bringing something to the floor?

  2. John425 says:

    Any time I hear the word Comprehensive attached to a bill I see a mish-mash bill loaded like a Christmas tree with riders, amendments and special-interest pork.

    How about several bills all aimed at Immigration Reform but put into place one at a time?

    For example:
    Bill #1. Secure the border and make it a felony to enter illegally.
    Bill #2 Enact a sound Agricultural Workers bill for seasonally migrating farm workers.
    Bill #3Install a workable and verifiable ID system for employers who then MUST verify applicants are authorized to be here.
    Bill #4 Any backlog of legal-entry petitioners MUST be cleared up before an Amnesty program is instituted.
    Bill #5 Illegal entrants without children go to the back of the “amnesty” line and anyone convicted of a serious crime is barred from entry and deported. Those convicted here will never be allowed legal entry.
    Bill #6 Illegal immigrant adults can get a green card only but Dreamers under age 18 will get a path to citizenship. The above mentioned Green Carders must also pay a fine.

    The rules should apply to all illegal immigrants, be they from Somalia, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, China or wherever.

  3. C. Clavin says:

    Damned if you do…damned if you don’t.
    If Obama uses executive action it’s an excuse for the do-nothing Congress to do nothing.
    If Obama doesn’t use executive action then he has failed to lead.
    Immigration has no effect on the wealth of the 1%…or a woman’s reproductive organs…and the base is afraid of brown people.
    Expect no action.

  4. C. Clavin says:
  5. Modulo Myself says:

    Shorter Republicans: don’t do anything to upset our anti-immigration crazies and force us to contemplate impeachment, because that will screw up our chances for 2016.

    Shorter Doug: boy, it sure would be naive of Obama to do this.

  6. Todd says:

    What’s naive is to imagine that Republicans actually have any ability to compromise with the President on anything over the next 2 years anyway … .whether the “well is poisoned” or not. I think by this point in his tenure, President Obama is in the position of Charlie Brown if he actually became aware that Lucy is pretty much always going to pull the football away before he kicks it.

  7. stonetools says:

    He promised to act, so he should.. That simple.
    The Republicans can pass a bill, if they want-which of course they won’t. They will, however, engage in all sorts of anti-immigrant rhetoric about the President letting in the brown hordes, such that Latinos will be left in no doubt as to how unwelcome they are to the Republican base.Isuspect that is why Republican leaders want no action on immigration.
    I expect the Latino vote will be back up to 75 per cent Democratic in 2016

  8. Davebo says:

    @John425:

    Bill #1. Secure the border and make it a felony to enter illegally.

    What’s the point of making it a felony to enter illegally? I assume you want those caught deported right?

    Unless they self deport they are going to be barred from attempting to enter legally for a long time and fined.

    I just don’t understand why making entering illegally a felony does a thing. We don’t want to pay to detain everyone while they await their hearing for 3 or 4 years.

  9. anjin-san says:

    @John425:

    Secure the border

    How do we do this? How do we pay for it?

    Please be specific.

  10. C. Clavin says:

    @anjin-san:

    I will say his proposal is fairly level-headed…to a limit.

    Secure the border

    What is the metric? By any reasonable metric the border is already secure. Unless you don’t really want to do immigration reform…and then you need this meaningless jargon to prevent action.

  11. John425 says:

    @Davebo: Self deporting is a joke and an oxymoron. A felony law would prohibit politicians from ignoring the law. Perhaps I should have been more precise and said “Henceforth, anyone caught entering illegally would face jail and a fine and barred forever.” Better?

  12. al-Ameda says:

    @John425:
    My responses below are preceded by **.
    _______________________________________:
    Bill #1. Secure the border and make it a felony to enter illegally.
    ** Not sure at all. Fencing or a more substantial wall, from CA to Texas? Really?
    Bill #2 Enact a sound Agricultural Workers bill for seasonally migrating farm workers.
    ** ok
    Bill #3Install a workable and verifiable ID system for employers who then MUST verify applicants are authorized to be here.
    ** ok
    Bill #4 Any backlog of legal-entry petitioners MUST be cleared up before an Amnesty program is instituted.
    ** ok
    Bill #5 Illegal entrants without children go to the back of the “amnesty” line and anyone convicted of a serious crime is barred from entry and deported. Those convicted here will never be allowed legal entry.
    ** End of the line? ok. ** Those convicted are being deported now.
    Bill #6 Illegal immigrant adults can get a green card only but Dreamers under age 18 will get a path to citizenship. The above mentioned Green Carders must also pay a fine.
    *** I oppose the fines, why turn this into indentured servitude? These are people coming here as economic refugees.

    ** Also, I oppose having separate bills for each of these proposals, one bill is fine. However, I want a clean bill, no trailers or amendments for any other unrelated purpose.

  13. John425 says:

    @anjin-san: @C. Clavin:
    As to how to secure the border and pay for it…well you do it the usual way; tax money is spent on it and troops, be they police, Border Patrol, National Guard or Homeland Security, man outposts with rapid response to alarms from drones, sensors, wall penetrations or what have you.

    As to the present security…
    The number of illegal immigrants is so high that the Border Patrol can barely cope. From last October to the end of May, 162,000 people from countries “other than Mexico” have entered the United States across the southern border. That’s a nearly 100 percent increase from the previous year. Three-quarters of those crossed in the Rio Grande Valley. Among them were 47,017 unaccompanied children, sent by family in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Nicaragua to join relatives in the United States.

    Is that a secure border to you, Cliffie??

  14. John425 says:

    @al-Ameda: However, I want a clean bill, no trailers or amendments for any other unrelated purpose.

    So would I but have you ever seen such a bill in the last couple of decades?? As you see, I prefaced my remarks with a disbelief in a Comprehensive Immigration bill because political hacks from both sides will festoon it like the proverbial Christmas tree of goodies.

  15. Raoul says:

    If is legal for the president to issue an amnesty, and I believe it is under the constitutional powers of pardon, then why shouldn’t he? The powers are conferred to him and he was duly elected in an election that had substantially more particiaption. I just don’t see the political or legal downside here. I mean what is the GOP going to do that it hasn’t done yet. Shut the governmnet, stop judicial nominees, not pass any legislation?

  16. Davebo says:

    @John425:

    Not really. Again, you want to pay to jail illegals caught. We don’t even fund the immigration court system enough to get them deported within 4 years of getting caught.

    How do yo propose we pay for that? And since when are politicians ignoring the law?

    Your misconceptions on the current mess that is our immigration review and enforcement system are immense.

    Why don’t you just add one line. Fully fund EOIR and appoint judges (there’s been a hiring freeze for years) to clear up the back log of current cases.

  17. Davebo says:

    The best way to curtail illegal immigration, other than pie in the sky “Tall Walls with Lasers!!!” is for people in origin countries to see people deported as quickly as possible after being detained.

    Currently, you’re looking at minimum 4 years in country after being caught, much more if you can afford to appeal.

    Knock that down to 40 days and you’ll make a difference.

  18. Tyrell says:

    There is an immigration plan that has broad based support. It is a practical, sensible plan. It respects the law, the family unity, secure borders, does not put a burden on taxpayers, and offers a path based on responibilities and meeting requirements. This is a plan that both parties and the president can and should support. For more information, see the Evangelical Immigration Table.

  19. Davebo says:

    @Tyrell:

    I actually went to the site to see what was proposed. Sadly all I got was broad concepts with basically no meat at all.

    In fact, you pretty much outlined the entire “plan” in your comment.

    Sadly it’s not a plan at all.

  20. anjin-san says:

    @John425:

    well you do it the usual way;

    A. Do you know how many miles of border we have?

    B. How big of a tax increase are you willing to have to pay for this?

  21. michael reynolds says:

    The reason bills are festooned like Christmas trees is that it’s necessary to buy votes.

    I am increasingly of the opinion that we need to get back to doing more of this, not less. Cutting off pork set-asides (earmarks) has not reduced overall spending but I believe it has played hell with getting anything done in Congress.

    Is it worth 10 or 20 million in earmarks to get comprehensive immigration? Yes.

    The corruption we have now – an open spigot of corporate money – is far worse than what we faced 20 or 30 years ago. I long for the days when you could buy a Congressman with a post office or a Senator with a bridge named after him. Those were the good old days. Those earmarks were at least intended to garner support from actual voters; Congress now cares nothing for such small fry, they’re essentially on the payroll at Goldman Sachs or Koch Industries.

  22. michael reynolds says:

    There is a national consensus on the basics of immigration, but it won’t matter unless Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes get on board. No one in the GOP has the balls to defy their masters.

  23. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    You’d think that, after the sequester debacle, Obama would have learned that the GOP is willing to call his bluffs.

    Plus, as stated before, Congress has the power of the purse strings. They can just forbid any money to be spent on whatever order Obama issues.

  24. Rafer Janders says:

    @John425:

    As to how to secure the border and pay for it…well you do it the usual way; tax money is spent on it

    Tax money?!?! But that’s socialism!!!

    You can’t tax your way out of every problem, you know.

  25. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    You’d think that, after the sequester debacle, Obama would have learned that the GOP is willing to call his bluffs.

    The GOP was not bluffing when they shut down government twice.

  26. anjin-san says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    They can just forbid any money to be spent on whatever order Obama issues.

    In other words, “You think we were f**cking up the country before? Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

  27. anjin-san says:

    @al-Ameda:

    The GOP was not bluffing when they shut down government twice.

    Don’t get Jenos started, we will get another million words or so on the scenic turnout closures…

  28. Guarneri says:

    It’s fascinating to see the Republican bashing, when many Dem congress people hold the same view. Oh, well. Carry on.

  29. John425 says:

    @anjin-san: Ever wonder how many miles of freeways and interstates we have? Don’t be silly.

  30. anjin-san says:

    @John425:

    Ever wonder how many miles of freeways and interstates we have? Don’t be silly.

    Yes, and you pay for them with every gallon you put in your car or truck. I ask again, how big of a tax increase are you willing to have to pay for this?

  31. Gustopher says:

    If we started jailing those who hire illegal immigrants, we would cut the flow across the border to a trickle in no time.

    Also, wages for legal workers in those industries would rise. Which means more expensive landscaping and vegetables, but let’s debate it on those issues rather than scary brown people crossing the border.

  32. anjin-san says:

    @John425:

    anyone caught entering illegally would face jail

    Why don’t you figure out how many new jails we will have to build, what the cost of staffing them will be, and then get back to us? Or are fairies and unicorns going to make all this happen?

    There is also the issue of us already having the worlds largest prison population, but that is probably a different discussion.

  33. Davebo says:

    @anjin-san:

    $200.00 per night per inmate. And that’s with Private Corporate Prisons handling the detention.

    Judges are pressured to bond out respondents in all but the most severe cases because of that cost. But again, it comes down to funding. It’s getting better but only because of public outcry over the backlog of reviews.

    But it takes a year minimum to vet, appoint and have the senate confirm each judge.

  34. CB says:

    Way off topic- Is there a Net Neutrality story in the works, mods?

  35. lounsbury says:

    @Davebo: Well it would put the USA into the good legal practices of such shining lights of developed countries like the Peoples Republic of Korea and similar peer countries. Perhaps an NKVD could then be drummed up from your ridiculous Homeland Security to have some serious study of proper policing models from the peer group.

  36. al-Ameda says:

    @Guarneri:

    It’s fascinating to see the Republican bashing, when many Dem congress people hold the same view. Oh, well. Carry on.

    Do you favor the Rubio proposal, or are you one of those Republicans who favors no action?