President Obama Preparing To Take Bold Action On Immigration Reform, Treading Water At The Limit Of His Executive Powers
President Obama is preparing to take bold action, by the end of the summer, if Congress does not begin to make progress on changes to the United State’s immigration policies. Legal experts and activists are watching President Obama’s actions closely as he treads the outer limits of his executive powers in an effort to coerce immigration form to happen. President Obama shared his concern about the lack of progress by Congress on Monday in the Rose Garden.
“They’re unwilling to stand up to the Tea Party and do what’s right for the country. And what’s worse — a bunch of them know better. While I will continue to push Republicans to drop excuses and act. Americans cannot wait forever for them to act.”
In an effort to take matters into his own hands, President Obama has directed that Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Department Secretary, and Attorney General Eric Holder to create and present him with executive actions that he can enact without congressional approval. President Obama has ordered the executive actions to be available by the end of the summer.
U.S. representative John Boehner made a statement on Monday that chastised President Obama for not working with Congress on the issue.
“In our conversation last week, I told the president what I have been telling him for months: the American people and their elected officials don’t trust him to enforce the law as written. Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue. The crisis at our southern border reminds us all of the critical importance of fixing our broken immigration system. It is sad and disappointing that — faced with this challenge — President Obama won’t work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can’t and won’t fix these problems.”
Immigration reform has always been a controversial issue within the government and the private sector. Despite the controversial aspect of the issue, it is agreeable on all sides that there need to be changes in the way that illegal immigration is handled. Rather than focus on the issue at hand and work on an acceptable compromise between the President and Congress, President Obama focused on his threat of an executive order and the number of executive orders that he has signed in comparison to his predecessors.
“The broader point is that if, in fact, House Republicans are concerned about me acting independently of Congress — despite the fact that I’ve taken fewer executive actions than my Republican predecessor or my Democratic predecessor before that, or the Republican predecessor before that — then the easiest way to solve it is passing legislation. Get things done,”
[Photo Courtesy: Shark Tank]
