President Obama Plans To Protect Nearly 5 Million Illegal Immigrants From Deportation

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-immigration-president-obama-ready-to-press-ahead-with-longpromised-plan-to-overhaul-broken-system--but-will-it-get-past-a-republicancontrolled-congress-9874119.html

They say that "when the US sneezes the UK catches a cold", well Mr President you can keep your sneezes so not to infect our politicians with your Left-Wing ideas.

[Booldawg]

ahhh that makes sense to an FB status I read today from a an expat I know in the US ' $10,000 in immigration costs and lawyers fees- why did I bother!'

[ichkeria]

I wondered when I saw the President on TV earlier whether this was not actually a good advert for the US political system (there don't seem to be many)
After all, here is a President who has no aspirations for re-election, so he is free to pursue policies which perhaps someone seeking a further term might be reluctant to go for. Lame duck or free to do the right thing, you decide :-)

[Old_Geezer]

I don't see giving pardons to illegal immigrants are particularly left wing. I do see it as foolish. Anyway the idea has already been mooted over here.

[Bazile]

//..After all, here is a President who has no aspirations for re-election, //

How can he have any aspirations for re-election , when he can't run for another term ?

[-Talbot-]

He didn't protect Winston from deportation.

[RandyMarsh]

Gosh, anyone would think that the USA was a land of opportunity, home of the free.

[Gromit]

Boris advocated an amnesty for London Illegal Immigrants.

Trying to capture them once they are here is pretty futile, and the cost of depirting them very expensive. Better to put resourses into stopping any more coming, than wasting it on wild goose chances.

[ummmm]

Now they have to pay taxes.

[Gromit]

Left wing? Don't be stupid.

oris Johnson today put himself on a collision course with David Cameron as he revived calls for an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The Mayor of London said the government had to be 'honest' that when someone has been in Britain for 15 or 20 years 'authorities no longer really pursue you'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2353451/Boris-Johnson-Give-illegal-immigrants-amnesty-stay-Britain.html#ixzz3JiNBjnML
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[Old_Geezer]

It still sends the wrong message Gromit. If you get past you've won. Try try try again. As an economic immigrant that's all part of the game.

[Gromit]

OG,

Diverting resourses from protecting our borders, to persuing ones already here does not make sense. Put ALL resources into keeping them out.

[ichkeria]

"How can he have any aspirations for re-election , when he can't run for another term ? "

Er, that was the point ...

[Clanad]

The most pressing problem with Obama's action is that it's entirely at odds with our U.S. Constitution that only allows laws to presented by the House of Representatives, accepted by the Senate and presented to the President for signature or veto.

The wording is very specific, but Obama feels he can (and has in the recent past) modify, ignoere or, as in this case, formulate a law entirely devoid of any input by both houses of Congress.

His purpose in doing so is entirely and brazenly political. In our mid-term elections held in early November, his Democratic Party took an unprecedented drubbing, losing control of the Senate and losing even more seats in the already Republican dominated House of Representatives. The American people are truly fed up with his arrogance and outright incompetence. He does, however have a core base of supporters... persons of 'color' at the center. His hope is that imposing a restriction on deporting illegals is that, now, they will be added to his 'base' and then help in the Presidential election coming in 2016...

Unfortunately, those newly elected in November won't take office until January so he's still supported by a Senate full of crap Democrats bent on destroying the country as we know it...

[Quizmonster]

I'm far from an expert on the USA's constitutional laws, but (quote) “In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the so-called “amnesty” law passed by Congress that granted legal status to three million undocumented immigrants, and then acted ON HIS OWN the following year to expand it to about 100,000 more.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/us/politics/obamas-immigration-decision-has-precedents-but-may-set-a-new-one.html?_r=0

Reagan was no "crap Democrat" and nor was he alone among Republican Presidents in passing such immigration laws, as the link above makes clear.

[sandyRoe]

many of these people have deep roots in the USA, have families, work and pay taxes. They'd be an asset to their adopted country.
It seems only right that they won't have to be looking over their shoulder or living a life dreading a dawn raid and deportation.

[ichkeria]

There was an interesting article recently in the Times comparing or rather contrasting Clinton and Obama in which the author claimed Obama to be a great president, certainly in comparison to Clinton, whose achievements, he claimed, amounted more or less to zero (perhaps a case of "close but for the cigar").
Not sure I really agree, but Obama's Health Insurance deal is a truly great achievement, even if foreign policy-wise many of us abroad are left feeling rather frustrated (but then again as Collins in the article points out, he was only doing what he promised).
As for the immigration amnesty, it seems profoundly sensible to me.
As I said before, a practical policy which might not have been countenanced in different circumstances.

[Clanad]

Q... the important difference between Reagan's action (and later President George H.W. Bush's) was that while Presidents do have the Constitutional power to use Executive Mandate to modify an existing law (only in minor ways) that had been passed by both Houses, he does not have the power to enact a law by himself, which is exactly what Obama is attempting to do.

Reagan expressly modified the existing law to assure the existing law to include children of the newly legalized immigrants, which the newly approved law failed to do. Reagan wanted to assure that the children of immigrants covered by the law (Simpson-Mazzoli) would not be torn from the families and deported...

[Quizmonster]

Thanks for that clarification, C. I did say I was no expert on the matter!
It still seems odd to me that Obama would have taken an action which, according to your response, is a clear non-runner. It would be a bit like our Prime Minister simply stating: "Fox-hunting is now perfectly legal again!"...or whatever.
I understand Obama is actually a lawyer of some sort, so I should have thought he would have established whether or not he actually could do what he has, in fact, said he'll do!

[Clanad]

Therein lies the crux of the conundrum (mixing metaphors, there) Q... Obama is supposed to be a Contitutional scholar and supposedly taught such a course at college level. He's never released records related to that issue, but that's another story.

Fact is, he only has two years left in his term and he (and the attendant Democratic Party) has suffered a nearly unprecedented defeat at the recently completed elections and I believe his way of responding is to poke a finger in the nations eye simply to assure the Latino population of over five million illegal immigrants, their families and friends that would have been deported are now firmly in the Democrat party and will turn the tide at the next election in 2016.

I'm not alone in seeing through his thinly veiled political actions... I don't think for a minute he actually has any real caring for the immigrants involved. and is struggling mightily to leave some sort of 'legacy' that he is certainly devoid of unless this ploy works...