Illegal Immigrant Children: Debate Over Obama’s Executive Amnesty Could Force A 2014 Government Shutdown


The debate over what to do with the illegal immigrant children, and the threat of an exeuctive order on immigration reform by President Barack Obama, has some Republicans considering force another government shutdown in 2014.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, one of the illegal immigrant children who was allowed to stay in the United States due to the the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was created by one of President Obama’s executive orders eventually went on to commit the crime of hit and run, killing two children in process. But the young woman was not sentenced to any jail time, nor was she deported, and will instead be able to obtain a work permit, a driver’s license, and can apply for a Social Security number.

The idea that Obama might grant amnesty to illegal immigrant children with the stroke of a pen is unpopular with even Democrats and Hispanics according to one poll, but the President insists something needs to be done, but has not yet said when. According to NewsMax, the White House is currently working on plans to justify an executive order legally.

“Facing an expect onslaught of opposition, the administration plans to argue that Congress failed to provide enough resources to fully enforce U.S. laws, thereby ceding wide latitude to White House to prioritize deportations of the 11.5 million people who are in the country illegally, administration officials and legal experts said. But Republicans, too, are exploring their legal options for stopping Obama from what they’ve deemed egregious presidential overreaching.”

But Republicans are already responding to the idea of giving amnesty to illegal amnesty children by suggesting a government shutdown. This would occur if the House ties a resolution to a general spending bill that blocks any attempt at giving amnesty. According to CNN, White House spokesman Josh Earnest seemed to indicate that Obama would not back down under the threat of a government shutdown.

“It would be a real shame if Republicans were to engage in an effort to shut down the government over a common sense solution. We would hope that Republicans wouldn’t do the same thing again,” he said. “They shut down the government over a commonsense, bipartisan effort to try to mitigate at least some of the worst problems that are caused by our broken immigration system.”

But as the flood illegal immigrant children has lessened, so has the insistence that an executive order is needed immediately. At the peak of the surge, there were at least 350 minor slipping under the Mexican border per day, but in August these numbers dropped to 104 per day, which is less than any month prior to early 2013. The slow in the surge has the Department of Health and Human Services no longer struggling to find temporary Housing, and President Obama seemed to indicate this new information may affect his decision in the short term.

“Some of these things do affect timelines, and we’re just going to be working through as systematically as possible in order to get this done.”

Regardless, the federal budget problems could still cause another government shutdown in 2014 even if the debate is focused just on spending cuts and taxes. It’s also believed that President Obama could choose to push off his executive order giving amnesty to illegal immigrant children until after 2014 mid-term elections. Some experts predict the GOP will take both the House and Senate in November and Obama may not want to hurt Democrats’ chances by releasing an unpopular executive order at this time.

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