President Barack Obama unveiled a new proposal on immigration Thursday night, giving around 5 million illegal aliens a path to stay in the United States without fear of deportation.
“Our immigration system is broken,” Obama said in a televised address from the White House. “Everybody knows it.”
Florida Republicans later fumed over the action of a president they insist is working outside his constitutional authority.
Obama’s proposal offers a path to temporary residency if the illegals register and pass a criminal background check. Under his action, illegal immigrants with children who are citizens, will be able to live and work in the U.S. for three years. It also shifts border security efforts against terrorists and criminals instead of illegals in general.
Pushing back against Republican critics, Obama noted former presidents used executive power on immigration reform and called on Congress to pass a bill. Obama also fired back on claims he is offering amnesty to illegal immigrants.
“I know some of the critics … call it amnesty. Well, it’s not,” Obama said. “Mass amnesty would be unfair. Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character. What I’m describing is accountability — a common-sense, middle ground approach.
“If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law,” Obama insisted. “If you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported. If you plan to enter the U.S. illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up.”
On Friday, Obama plans to rally support for his immigration plan in Las Vegas at an event with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who will become minority leader when the GOP takes control of the Senate in January.
Obama’s plan drew the fire of Florida Republicans. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a champion of immigration reform and part of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” said Obama’s actions were not helping the cause.
“We need immigration reform,” Rubio said. “But the right way to do it is to first bring illegal immigration under control by securing the borders and enforcing the laws, then modernizing our legal immigration system. After we do these things, we will eventually have to deal with those here illegally in a reasonable but responsible way. The president’s actions now make all of this harder and are unfair to people in our immigration system who are doing things the right way.”
U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., said the American people are against the idea.
“Someone is not listening, and he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Crenshaw said on Thursday. “On November 4, I heard voters in Florida and across the nation say that they’re opposed to amnesty. They are the same voters who took their thinking to the ballot box, increasing Republican margins in the House and turning the United States Senate leadership over to the GOP because they are tired of the president circumventing the will of the people.
“I continue to stand alongside these Americans — 100 percent against amnesty,” Crenshaw continued. “But, our president does not. The very man who said 22 times that he could not ignore or create his own immigration laws wants to do exactly that by working around Congress. It’s astounding, but unfortunately it’s not surprising.
“For President Obama, it’s a ‘my way or the highway’ approach. But to me, it’s unconstitutional, and I expect and support a challenge to it in Congress and the courts,” Crenshaw added. “No one can doubt that this country has to address the crisis of illegal immigration. It places tremendous financial and social burdens on our society. Moreover, the surge at our border is proof that it is not secure, and, in my book, securing our borders is the No. 1 priority. President Obama should work together with Congress to make this happen, not against it by putting millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship with the stroke of a pen.”
U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., part of the Republican leadership as senior deputy majority whip, came out swinging on Thursday against Obama’s plan to use executive power to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.
“Two weeks ago, President Obama stood before the American people and announced that he had heard the voters’ message,” Ross said on Thursday. “But the underlying meaning of the following statement proves that his agenda is contrary to what Americans desire: ‘Still, as president, I have a unique responsibility to try to make this town work.’ Actions speak louder than words, and the president’s ‘unique responsibility’ of ignoring the will of the American people, and circumventing the United States Congress, is the wrong course of action. If the president goes forward as planned, I suspect his ‘immigration reform’ will have the same negative outcome as his ‘health care reform.’
“I have repeatedly stated that the best way to address immigration reform is with incremental steps, with the first critical step being to secure our borders,” Ross added. “Instead, the president is headed to Las Vegas to gamble away our national security by granting massive amnesty rights while failing to secure our border. The president’s go-it-alone attitude will cause irreparable harm to any effort to reform our immigration system and ruin any chance of having a positive working relationship with Congress during his final two years in office. I implore President Obama to reconsider his executive action and instead work with Congress, and the majority of the American people, on a real solution.”
But Florida Democrats pushed back. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., insisted Florida needed the action Obama was taking.
“Florida families, businesses, universities, law enforcement agencies, churches and faith leaders have urged Congress for years to fix America’s broken immigration laws. I have listened to their stories and together we have pressed for change,” Castor said on Thursday, before pointing the blame at the GOP. “But time after time, Republicans who control the U.S. House failed to act, failed to allow debate on the floor and blocked a vote – even after two-thirds of the U.S. Senate voted to pass a bipartisan reform bill a year and a half ago. Speaker Boehner said many times that the House would act, but it never did.
“The U.S. Senate passed its bipartisan immigration reform bill in June of 2013 by a vote of 68-32,” Castor continued. “Since that time, House Republicans blocked any action on the House companion, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (HR 15), which has 200 co-sponsors. Aside from the humanitarian benefits to immigrant families, a report from the Congressional Budget Office found that HR15 would reduce the deficit by $900 billion over the next two decades, including $200 billion in the first decade alone. HR15 would provide an earned pathway to citizenship, reduce the deficit and create jobs. In Florida, common-sense immigration reform would directly benefit a range of industries that are central to our economy – including technology, agriculture, tourism and construction.
“In the face of interminable obstruction, it is necessary for President Obama to act by executive order, just as he did in 2012 when he granted temporary relief to DREAM Act students who were born outside America but know no other country and have no other home,” Castor added. “Such temporary relief for DREAM Act students paved the way for many young people to become productive individuals for our local communities, like Jose Godinez-Samperio who will be sworn into the Florida Bar this evening by a Florida Supreme Court justice in Tampa. The executive order inspired even the Republican-led Florida Legislature to allow a noncitizen with new legal status to realize his dream to the benefit of our state. If any pathway or application process existed, that would have been preferable. However, no such process exists until Congress changes the law to allow it.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
