President Obama speaks from the White House on his executive order to grant millions of illegal immigrants deferred action status and work visas on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014.
According to a senior White House official, President Obama was hoping to bait Republicans with his executive action on immigration, forcing a government shutdown. The president Thursday night announced he would give deferred action status to millions of illegal immigrants by circumventing Congress, and any GOP plan to undo this executive decree will be vetoed.
The official said that the president met with Democratic strategists upon his return from Asia and — rather than heed the election results and give the newly elected Republican Congress a chance to act — decided that this was a fight that the White House wanted to have. The official said that the White House didn’t want to get boxed in by bills passed by the new majority, specifically a widely popular border security bill that would have served as a prerequisite to any other congressional action on immigration.
“Deferred action will go ahead regardless of a government shutdown, so the president wins either way,” the officials said. “The president will veto any bill that impacts his executive order, and welcomes a shutdown.”
They also said that the American people will hear a lot about “accountability” in the next few months, to combat the opposition’s message of “amnesty.” Further, at a meeting Wednesday night at the White House, Democratic leaders in Congress pressed the president to do something that would help the members of their otherwise defeated minority party.
“The basic message to the president from top Democrats was ‘you broke it, now fix it’,” the official said. “A large part of the plan to revive the party is centered around this strategy.”
President Obama did not invite Republican members of Congress to the White House for the meeting Wednesday, which ended up being less a meeting about immigration policy and more a strategy session for the Democratic Party. Republicans criticized the president for excluding them from the meeting, but even more so for the actual order Thursday night.
“By making that announcement, he is making it very to clear to those around the world waiting to get in the U.S. legally that they are chumps,” said Charles Krauhammer, following the president’s speech. “I find the president’s audacity here rather remarkable.”
“If he felt so strongly about this, then why did he wait until after the election.?” Krauthammer asked. “Why, if he felt so strongly about it and if Scripture dictates it, didn’t he do this before the 2012 election, before his own election? Why did he do nothing in 2009 and 2010 when he had the White House, the House and the Senate, when he could have done this through legislation constitutionally?”
In 2009 and 2010, the president enjoyed a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, yet did not act on immigration reform for those two years. Now, the president and Democrats are making the argument that he had to take executive action because the Republican-controlled House of Representatives failed to pass a bill even though they had a shorter period of time to do so.
