Difficult Situation for Obama

The president has been considering executive action, which the Supreme Court may decide against.

Immigration

Despite all of President Barack Obama’s efforts in blaming the Republicans in the House of Representatives for preventing the passing of a new and extensive immigration law, the head of state can’t feel comfortable with this issue.

Mind you, there is no doubt that the Republicans in the House of Representatives have suddenly stopped all efforts for passing a law similar to the one already passed by the Senate. Optimists say that there is still time to solve this issue, but the truth is all efforts for passing a new immigration law this year are dead and buried.

This past Monday, President Obama said that he was going to take executive measures to resolve at least part of the problem. He explained that he had asked officials in his administration to present all options to the executive branch in order to try and alleviate the issue. He said that he would have the options ready by the end of this summer.

But this is not a good moment for the president to talk of resolving things via executive order. The Supreme Court already established that the president had exceeded his powers in appointing three members to the National Labor Relations Board during the brief downturn in the Senate.

If Obama were to do something that the Supreme Court defined as unconstitutional, it would damage his credibility and weaken the executive branch. It would also limit the president’s influence in his last two years in the White House.

But the Supreme Court is not the only party that the president offended while talking about immigration. Most liberals within the Democratic Party are annoyed because the president said that he was going to speed up the process of deportation for thousands of undocumented children who crossed the border alone this year.

Spokesmen of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network said on Tuesday that they were concerned about the announcement from President Obama’s administration of his plan to limit legal rights for people entering the country on fear of violence in their countries.

The president said that he was going to transfer personnel from the United States center to the border with Mexico in order to better deal with the humanitarian crisis of thousands of children who have already come into the United States.

Some of those against all kinds of immigration could applaud the president on his decision to speed up the deportation process of these children who come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, but in order to do this, the president would have to eliminate the laws that govern such cases.

“Weakening due process rights is not the solution,” said Jeanne M. Atkinson, executive director of CLINIC. “Deporting children to circumstances that endanger their lives undermines our values as a country. Children must be permitted a real opportunity to express their fear and be screened for legal relief.”

The legal process in the United States is long and complicated if a person of whatever age says that they are afraid of dying upon being deported. An administrative hearing to determine whether these children really fear the violence in their country of origin can take two or more years.

Obama, whom many already call “Deporter-in-Chief,” as well as many liberals in his party, does not have it easy.

To satisfy the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, he would have to try and stop, or at least delay, the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants who reside in the United States. No president has deported more undocumented immigrants than him. In his first five years as president, Obama has deported 2 million undocumented immigrants — about 400,000 a year. This is much more than any other president.

His fellow Democrats want him to stop the mass deportations of those who are already in the United States, as well as of the children who enter now, but if he does this, Republicans would accuse him of not complying with the law and explain that this is the reason they refuse to pass immigration reform.

In the long run, the Democrats have everything to gain. Hispanics will not forgive Republicans for preventing the passing of a new immigration law this year. However, this won’t be very important in the midterm elections this November; it’s going to be crucial in the presidential elections in 2016.

Obama should abide by the law and grant legal rights to young people coming into the country illegally. It’s a humanitarian issue. Also, he should try and delay the process of deporting undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for years — particularly those who have relatives in the country. He could try to change parts of the law by executive order, but if he does it, he runs the risk of the Supreme Court saying again that he has violated the Constitution.