Inside D.C.

Is this same old, same old?

I’m still amazed when politicians ignore what’s directly in front of their collective face.  Such is the case with immigration reform and President Obama’s decision to  double-dog dare the Republicans to challenge his November 20 “executive order,” action effectively granting legal status to nearly 5 million undocumented workers in this country who just 24 hours before were deemed “illegal.”

The midterm election was just over two weeks ago.  The fundamental political message from the voters was pretty clear. The public told both Republicans and Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in the same clear voice: Enough of the gamesmanship, the posturing and the power plays; get to work, get things done.

Both sides seem to have decided that was then, this is now.  The President, having lifted liberally in his announcement from the 2013 Senate-passed immigration reform bill, scaled back his initial 10-point plan to “fix what’s broken with immigration,” likely due to inescapable legal roadblocks and political considerations.  However, his announced plan is the political equivalent of poking the bear that is the conservative side of the House GOP.   That wing of the Republican majority is reacting as expected, namely threatening all kinds of pain and political suffering if the President acts as he did.

There’s talk of inserting language in the FY2015 omnibus spending bill to legally bar both the White House and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from spending appropriated tax dollars to move forward with the President’s plan.  The President, upping the ante, vows to veto any bill which lands on his desk that would interfere with his executive order.

Texas, which spends $12 million a month on its illegal immigrant challenges, says it will sue over the executive order.  Several other Republican governors contemplate similar action because they see the White House order as a classic “unfunded mandate.”  This is when the federal government imposes on the cash-strapped states programs and actions without providing assistance to the states to pay for such “necessary” programs.

This is not the behavior the voters want.  These are not the actions of serious lawmakers; this is more of the last six years.  This is a game of political chicken in which, ultimately, the system and the public lose.

Voters question the President on his timing, as in, if this issue wasn’t important enough to act upon last fall – Mr. Obama publicly declared he’d wait until after the election because the “politics of the issue have changed” – and in 2013 he told a Telemundo audience he lacked the legal authority to simply implement unpassed legislation, such action being “difficult to defend legally,” then why this route and why now?

The public questions Congress – particularly the newly minted GOP House and Senate majority leadership – on why they’ve shied away from this issue, particularly since the Senate approved last year a bipartisan reform bill that could stand as the universal civics class model for all bipartisan legislation?   They further distrust Republicaton statements about “working with the President” if a White House meeting yields warnings to the Oval Office, but no timetable and no offers.

If you look at the substance of the Obama executive order, it makes some sense.  The “undocumented” status of 4.5-million-plus immigrants – the vast majority of whom are working in essential jobs – must be addressed sooner rather than later; spending limited resources on catching bad guys and sending them home first also makes sense, while increasing the number of visas needed to keep tech workers here, while enticing more to come, solves another pressing issue.

But no doubt due to legal hurdles, the President left unaddressed in the “guest worker” program desired by the agriculture community, the industry which perhaps relies most heavily on immigrant labor.   Ag immigration experts are exasperated by the political byplay – “we want a law not an order,” said one senior association executive today.  Another association referred to the Obama plan as a “Band-Aid on a wound in need of a tourniquet.”

The President says the next step is for Congress to “send me a bill.”  This is a fair request.  However, the President does not have the right to sit back and wait, and then approve or disapprove of what’s ultimately approved by Congress.  If he cares so much, then he must get engaged; both sides need to sit down and negotiate a long-term immigration reform bill, and earlier rather than later.  In the meantime, I urge the President to reconsider signing that executive order before a whole lot of money is spent on programs and enforcement – and a whole lot of immigrant lives are unhinged – when/if Congress ultimately refuses to recognize the wisdom of some of the President’s actions.

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