By FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
PUBLISHED: 14:46 EST, 30 June 2014 | UPDATED: 16:02 EST, 30 June 2014
President Barack Obama announced today that he would again go around Congress to enact immigration reform measures.
In a hastily scheduled statement this afternoon from the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he would 'greatly prefer' Congress pass its own legislation, rather than having to take matters into his own hands, but House Republicans have given him no choice.
'I don’t prefer taking administrative action,' he said. 'I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing.'
The president said he had directed his administration to 'refocus' is efforts on border security and said it would use its 'existing legal authorities' to do 'what Congress refuses to do' and fix the broken immigration system.
My way or the highway: President Barack Obama said today that in the absence of Congressional legislation addressing the U.S.'s broken immigration system, he would use his 'existing legal authority' enact his own reforms
The President said he expected recommendations from his administration on what he can do without Congress by the end of the summer.
It will still taken an act of Congress, however, Obama said, to truly reform the system, and Obama indicated that he had recently told House Speaker John Boehner as much.
'I’m going to continue to reach out to House Republicans in the hope that they deliver a more permanent solution with a comprehensive bill,' Obama said.
'Maybe it will be after the midterms, when they’re less worried about politics. Maybe it will be next year. Whenever it is, they will find me a willing partner.'
Obama said he'd be willing to look at legislation other than the version he supports that is stalled in the Senate.
'The only thing I can’t do,' Obama said, 'is stand by and do nothing while waiting for [House Republicans] to get their act together.'
'I believe Speaker Boehner when he says he wants to pass an immigration bill. I think he genuinely wants to get something done,' Obama said at another point in his remarks.
After Obama's announcement Boehner released a statement saying 'it is sad and disappointing' that the president 'won't work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone with executive orders that can't and won't fix these problems.
'In our conversation last week, I told the president what I have been telling him for months: the American people and their elected officials don't trust him to enforce the law as written.
'Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue,' Boehner said.
The president's announcement comes two years after he went around Congress to change administration policy as it regards to how it treats young people who have lived in the United States since they were children.
The president's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order instructed immigration officials to stop deporting young people who had lived in the U.S. continuously since 2007 and had no criminal record.
That policy, Republicans claim, led to the current humanitarian crisis on America's border with Mexico.
Unaccompanied minors have poured into the border since DACA went into effect.
Many are coming from Mexico, but the majority are coming from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The Customs and Border Protection agency expects 100,000 children to illegally immigrate to the Unite States by the end of the year.
Neither Obama's DACA directive nor his immigration reform legislation that is currently stalled in the Senate would apply to them, but more than 200 a day are coming to the U.S. anyway under the false assumption they will receive amnesty when they arrive.
Border enforcement officials have been overwhelmed by the flood of children, and detention facilities in the Rio Grande area in Texas are overflowing with teens and small kids awaiting deportation or other government action.
'The White House claims it will move to return these children to their families in their home countries, yet additional executive action from this president isn't going to stem the tide of illegal crossings, it’s only going to make them worse,' Boehner said today.
Boehner accused the president was 'giving false hope to children and their families that if they enter the country illegally they will be allowed to stay.'
In his remarks Obama said today that crisis on the border 'underscores' the need for immigration reform and called on House Republicans saying otherwise to stop coming up with excuses not to pass reforms.
'It makes no sense. It's not on the level. It's just politics, plain and simple,' he said of their refusal to pass reform legislation.
Obama denied that his past actions had provided encouragement for the mass migration of children, saying, 'I've sent a clear message to parents in these countries, not to put their kids through this.'
'The problem is our immigration system is so broken, so unclear,' Obama said, Central Americans don't know what the rules are.
The president said said 'maybe' Republicans will pass reform after the Midterm elections this November when they're less worried about politics, or maybe they will pass them next year.
In the meantime, Obama said would act on his own.
If Congress doesn't like it, he said, it should pass it's own legislation instead of trying to sue him, he said, referring to Boehner's announcement last week that the House would bring a lawsuit against Obama for repeatedly going around Congress to amend the law as he sees fit.
'Pass a bill; solve a problem. Don't just say no on something that everybody agrees needs to be done,' the president said.
'With the House of Representatives filing a lawsuit to curb Obama’s presidential overreach, you'd think this administration would get the message,' Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement harshly rebuking the president.
'Our Constitution is not a list of suggestions. Our Founders were not mistaken when they created three separate branches of government,' Priebus argued, citing recent Supreme Court decisions rolling back Democratic-supported legislation.
'[The president] wants a comprehensive immigration overhaul that's his way or the highway. But that doesn't give him the power to rewrite the Constitution or the law.'
.
No comments:
Post a Comment