Immigration Reform Through Executive Order
Stop deporting illegal immigrants and start giving them work permits is the message that President Barack Obama delivered yesterday from the Rose Garden.
This executive order will make it possible for over 800,000 young illegal immigrants to stay in the country without having to fear deportation. Similar to what the DREAM Act planned to accomplish, this policy change comes without the dissenting opinions from the dominantly republican congress.
“They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper,” Obama said.
These young illegal immigrants were brought here when they were just kids, raised here in the states, and went to school here all while knowing deportation was possible. Not now
The Department of Homeland Security has now been promoted to stop deporting those immigrants who have lived in America before they were 16, those who have lived in the U.S. for five years or more, and immigrants who are either high school graduates, college students, or serve in the military. They must also possess no criminal record and be under 30 years old.
They will now share the luxuries that regular American citizens do: applying to college, receiving financial aid to help with tuition, obtaining a driver’s license, and legally seeking employment. This all comes less than five months before a very heated presidential election.
Attack remarks came even before the speech was over when a reporter from The Daily Caller shouted out, “Mr. President, why do you favor foreign workers over Americans?” Obama did not like that comment, returning a remark, “Excuse me, sir. It’s not time for questions, sir. Not while I am speaking.”
Although openly angered by this interruption, Obama came back to that question later in his speech saying, “This is the right thing to do for the American people.”
The DREAM Act, which was originally filibustered in 2010, included some campaign promises made back in 2008 by Obama. This executive order gives those illegals some answers but certainly provokes many Americans who are without a job, strapped for cash, and relying on government assistance to get by.
A campaign promise in the midst of a serious recession effecting people countrywide has some wondering where Obama’s attention is focused. Many say it is the Hispanic vote, a vote that he will be needed come November in order to have a better chance for reelection.
In 2008, Obama captured 67 percent of the Hispanic vote and that number has been dwindling recently as he peps up his campaign for the White House in 2012.
According to the Washington Post, he has deported more illegal immigrants than any president since the 1950s. Obama has deported over a million since he took office in January 2008. Now, he issues an executive order that allows undocumented immigrants to call America home. The timing of this order is being called into question.
The focus is about the economy for Mitt Romney, who spent the day today in Pennsylvania talking to a crowd at Weatherly Casting and Machine Co. near Hazleton, an hour east of Bloomsburg.
“I think we have to have a very careful review of who’s giving a fair shot to the American people,” Romney told a crowd earlier this morning.
Choosing not to comment too much on the immigration policy, Romney did say that this would be only a short-term answer to a much larger problem, fueling the fire for more intense campaigning on both sides.
