Right after Republican Rep. Darrel Issa (CA) announces that he’s introducing a bill to offer legalization for some unauthorized immigrants, President Obama gave a speech about how immigration reform is now his top priority. The President said: “This is not just an idea whose time has come, this is an idea that’s been around for years now.”
The President then blamed all recent political problems and failures to pass reform on Republicans – ignoring the gargantuan efforts of Republicans in the Senate like Marco Rubio (R‑FL), Jeff Flake (R‑AZ), and others.
Republican support for immigration reform, especially in the House of Representatives, is vital to it becoming law. By stealing the spot light and making immigration a partisan issue, he is distracting from reform.
Does anybody else have déjà vu? How many times do we have to hear the President give a speech pleading for reform while his administration continues to deport record numbers of people? How many times will the President blame the Republicans for every problem with our immigration system in one sentence and then say we need bipartisanship in the next? How many times will the President blame everybody but his administration for our destructive immigration system?
President Obama is not in a position of moral authority to blame his political opponents for all of the problems with our immigration system, especially considering that sometime in the next few months, this administration will likely have deported its 2 millionth immigrant.
In his speech, the President also pointed to his record as a Senator in working with Republicans to pass immigration reform during the Bush administration. In fact, Obama was instrumental in killing immigration reform in 2007 when he voted for the Dorgan amendment, named after then-Sen. Byron Dorgan (D‑N.D), a known poison pill designed to gut the guest worker expansion and scuttle the entire reform along with it. Without a guest worker portion, much of the support from businesses and pro-reform Republicans evaporated – which is why so many anti-immigration reform Republicans voted for the Dorgan amendment too.
It passed 49 to 48 thanks to Obama’s unexpected support.
President Obama does deserve credit for some positive changes to our immigration system. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has limited deportation of some Dreamers, at least temporarily. President Obama could have deferred their deportations on his first day in office but instead he waited almost three and a half years – five months before the next Presidential election – to do so.
President Obama’s priorities will probably shift next week toward fixing the atrocious rollout of the healthcare.gov website or some other issue, but for this fleeting moment he’s focusing on immigration – because his political opponents are. I suspect that I will write something very similar to this in the next few months while suffering from déjà vu.
