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Obama Administration Considers Bypassing Congress on Immigration Reform
The Obama administration, anticipating that Congress might not pass comprehensive immigration reform this year, is considering ways it could act without congressional approval to achieve many of the objectives of the initiative, including giving permanent resident status, or green cards, to large numbers of people in the country illegally.
The ideas were outlined in an unusually frank draft memo prepared for Alejandro N. Mayorkas, director of the federal agency that handles immigration benefits, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS). The memo lists ways the government could grant permanent resident status to tens of thousands of people and delay the deportation of others, potentially indefinitely.
"In the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, CIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations," said the memo, which was prepared by four senior officials from different branches of USCIS.
The 11-page document was made public Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who with six other senators wrote to Obama more than a month ago, asking for his assurance that rumors that some sort of reprieve was in the works for millions of illegal immigrants weren't true.
"The administration has failed to reassure us that the information we were hearing was inaccurate," Grassley said in a statement to ProPublica Thursday night. "This memo gives credence to our concerns that the administration will go to great lengths to circumvent Congress and unilaterally execute a back door amnesty plan."
The memo's release is certain to put the administration on the defensive with opponents of "comprehensive immigration reform" -- Washington code for putting many of the estimated 12 million people in the country illegally on a potential path to citizenship. It is also likely to make immigration an even hotter topic in this year's congressional elections, which have already been roiled by Arizona's controversial attempt to use state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws.
Christopher Bentley, a USCIS spokesman, said last night that the agency would not comment on details of the memo, which he described as an internal draft that "should not be equated with official action or policy of the Department...We continue to maintain that comprehensive bipartisan legislation, coupled with smart, effective enforcement, is the only solution to our nation's immigration challenges."
Bentley said that internal memos help the agency "do the thinking that leads to important changes; some of them are adopted and others are rejected" and that "nobody should mistake deliberation and exchange of ideas for final decisions."
"To be clear," he said in an e-mail, the Obama administration "will not grant deferred action or humanitarian parole to the nation's entire illegal immigrant population."
One of the memo's most controversial suggestions is wider use of "deferred action," the agency's discretion to indefinitely delay the deportation of otherwise deportable non-citizens. "This would permit individuals for whom relief may become available in the future to live and work in the U.S. without fear of removal," the memo said.
The memo acknowledges that granting deferred action to an unrestricted number of people "would likely be controversial, not to mention expensive." Instead, it suggests that this option be used for particular groups, such as the approximately 50,000 young people who would be allowed to stay in the country if Congress passed the Dream Act. That bill would provide a potential path to citizenship for qualifying young people who complete a college degree or two years of military service.
The memo also says that standards for "extreme hardship" cases could be eased so "many more spouses, sons and daughters of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents" could seek relief without fearing deportation.
In what would be a reversal of a position held by the agency's Office of General Counsel under previous administrations, the memo suggests granting green cards to large numbers of people currently in the country under Temporary Protected Status. That status typically is used to forestall deportation proceedings for large groups of undocumented foreign nationals when it would cause them hardship, such as sending them home in the wake of a major earthquake or hurricane or during a civil war.
Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform are certain to welcome any effort by the Obama administration to unilaterally open pathways to citizenship for many currently in the country illegally. But the draft is also sure to outrage immigration-restriction groups.
"The memo proposes 18 different ways for the Obama administration to essentially eliminate our borders through regulatory fiat and in clear violation of the letter and the spirit of U.S. immigration laws, which Obama swore an oath to faithfully execute," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, an organization that lobbies for tighter immigration laws and practices.
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20 Comments so far
Show Allwhy not.
congress was bypassed to wage war.
Ah, the unitary executive. Smelling familiar.
The unitary executive produces disasterous policies and disasterous undeclared wars. Congress has an absolute obligation to reassert its constitutional powers before any president makes more bone headed moves that imperil our country. Treaties require approval by two thirds of the congress, and warfare of any kind requires an actual declaration of war by congress.
A US president certainly has no right to approve millions of mexicans invading the US.
Invasion by tens of millions of mexicans allows mexico to export their surplus population and their problems to the US.
Mexican problems include murderous drug gangs that push deadly addictive drugs, unsustainable overpopulation, rampant truck hijackings, and open warfare against its own people in the south.
Even the Monarch butterfly is imperiled by mexico, since that failed country will not even properly protect the few acres the Monarch butterflies need for mass hibernation each winter.
If mexico would control its overpopulation, it would solve a great many of its problems, and be far less likely to become a failed state.
Although I don't think the president should be able to move forward without working with other elected officials we cannot forget why we are at this point.
The US business community, Mexican business community, US & Mexican gov't have played a major role in depopulating the Mexican countryside and therefore populating the US. Food that we eat is at the center of this. Begin with the Brosero project way back starting in 1942 and the propaganda basically has continued to woo Latin Americans to our fields.
Overpopulation could easily be remedied by education programs and jobs for women. That is more effective than anything else. But with structural adjustment programs countries were discouraged from social programs and businesses took advantage of a huge labor force and had no incentives for creating good jobs.
Finally, its unfortunate that this is a Mexican immigration issue. There are plenty of illegal immigrants who are here from non-Latin American countries.
We are harvesting what we have planted all around the world now: deregulated capitalism which build extremely wealth classes of elites with extremely reduced middle classes and now without proper discussion and respect for human beings we will probably help some without truly fixing the foundation of the problem.
If you were paying attention to other recent articles on immigration you would see how complex this issue is. Simply blaming this issue on overpopulation, drug gangs who supply our addictions unfortunately simplifies this extremely complex issue that daily claims the lives of heads of households and their families.
Then he should also appoint Elizabeth Warren as head of the new Consumer Protection Agency without Congressional approval....if he plans on pushing his immigration agenda through without Congress.
One without the other would indicate that he is simply looking for votes from Latinos and not really interested in protecting all Americans from the banksters and their lobbyists.
Obama can't be that stupid, can he?
Yes, I think he can be
You know what will happen if he tries to pull that off
We all know how well bypassing Congress for waging war worked out, don't we? I think the issue is too important not to take the time (yes, and hear the arguments) to work it out together.
Congress passes laws and regulations that require details to be worked out by the current administration. In the last administration when these laws were passed the Bush administration defined these details in many cases stretching what the original regulations intended. With the election of Obama the electorate granted the current administration the right to define or redefine these details. In the current environment the congress is unwilling to pass new regulations. This is a polite way of saying the "Party of No" will not allow virtually anything of significance to currently pass the Senate.
There is no reason that the details of these regulations can not be changed by the current administration. If 60% of the Senate wants to pass different regulations they should proceed to do so. They will find the same "Party of No" blocking any progress.
The country elected Obama president with a clear set of objectives. They will hold him responsible for implementing these objectives. If the "Party of No" denies the elected President the congressional methods to implement the objectives, the President should take a strong stand and modify the implementation of various laws to move these objectives forward. The President is not violating any law, he is merely implementing the laws within the parameters of the existing laws. If the "Party of No" has the votes to change the laws then it should do so.
When the administration bi passes the laws and regulations, it snubs its noise at the people who have voted for those laws and regulations.
Government by fiat is not a representative government; and we know how that worked out in 1776.
"The country elected Obama president with a clear set of objectives."
yeah - hope and change - real clear.
"yes we con."
US Citizen and Immigration Service (USCIS) deserves our plaudits for thinking creatively. Those who argue that this is an example of unitary executive power completely miss the mark. They are also ignorant of Lend-Lease, FDR's brilliant effort to get weapons to Britain before we entered WWII.
Repubicans are obsessed with using the filibuster to block any responsible change to anything. They are absolutists on saying "NO" to anything that matters.(Look at how they filibustered on Small business improvements, legislation supported by Republican allies such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Nat'l Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB)). The current crop of Senate Republicans has no shame!
So there's no choice but to think creatively. The Mayorkas memo does just that. It's examples are specific, targetted and address real problems. It overcomes unfairness in many matters that affects immigrants including those that are cinsidered illegal. These are hard working people who pay taxes and fulfill responsibilities to their community.
If any part of the Mayorkas-USCIS effort goes forward the Obama Administration has to be prepared to engage in a serious political fight. Republicans will likely attempt to use fear and the Appropriations process to bar spending public dollars on any of the proposed USCIS efforts.
It's a fight worth making.
David Cohen,
Washington DC
"US Citizen and Immigration Service (USCIS) deserves our plaudits for thinking creatively. Those who argue that this is an example of unitary executive power completely miss the mark. They are also ignorant of Lend-Lease, FDR's brilliant effort to get weapons to Britain before we entered WWII".
Well, Mr David Cohen, Washington DC. you deserve plaudits for your creative thinking as well. I, for one, am aware of FDR's transitory methods to hold England together, yet fail to see any correlating evidence that might justify your premiss.
I totally agree Mr. Cohen.
This may be way outside the proverbial box, but I hope the follow through is fast, so the fight can start and finish.
Mary Alice Tanner
Central Illinois
Obama was either naive, or didn't care at the time he became president, that no matter the party, Republicans run the show. Remember when Bush Jr. wanted the illegals to have a drivers licence? He wanted the borders opened from Mexico to Canada. Obama was given the same script as Bush had.
Obama is a right wing free trade democrat like Bill Clinton and oddly enough he has labor's support on enlarging the cheap labor pool because the unions think they can organize these workers from Mexico. Now he is caught in a toxic bind between the impatience of his latino supporters and the overwhelming opposition of white voters to any reform that does not start with actually securing the border which can only be done by going after the employers of the illegals which both parties reject precisely because it would actually work.
Do it now! Congress doesn't want to cooperate on anything. It's about time he started doing his job and shove whatever is necessary down their throats in order to make them do their jobs.
Someone said this action was important enough to take time to hear the arguments.
The problem with that is---there will be no real argument.
All there will be is a NO to anything proposed by a Democratic president. The stated object of our opposing party is to actively cause the failure of Obama's presidency. What are the REAL choices he has left.
The answer is: he uses what the opposition hands him. It will really be a courageous move to make this end run around the opposition and get something REAL accomplished.
"Obama Administration Considers Bypassing Congress on Immigration Reform"
Ok, not sure who comes up with these headlines, but granting amnesty to illegal immigrants is not "immigration reform".
Even tho, after following this subject for quite a while now, that's what everyone means by "comprehensive immigration reform". Immigration to the US works fine. The US takes more than 1 milliion legal immigrants every year. This is all about granting amnesty.