In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, President Obama defended his decision to delay executive amnesty, claiming the politics of the issue changed after tens of thousands of illegals poured across the southern border over the late-spring and summer.
“The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem,” Obama said. “I want to spend some time, even as we’re getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action, I also want to make sure that the public understands why we’re doing this, why it’s the right thing for the American people, why it’s the right thing for the American economy.”
However, amnesty activists aren’t buying Obama’s accuse or simply don’t care what the majority of the American people think on this issue, despite once being among the president’s staunchest supporters. PPD examined in detail the politics of immigration before and after the president announced he was delaying any action. The bottom line is that immigration was never a top priority or particularly popular even before the manufactured border crisis.
Even half of legal Hispanics side with opposing House Republicans and moderate Democrats on the issue, but that’s not calming activist outrage on the left.
“We are bitterly disappointed in the president,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the group America’s Voice. “The president and Senate Democrats have chosen politics over people.”
The politics regarding the 2014 midterm elections were fairly easy to comprehend. Americans were strongly opposed to the president taking executive action that would have granted countless millions of illegal immigrants amnesty, and Democrats would no doubt have paid the price at the ballot box in November. However, the president was in a lose-lose situation.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Arturo Rodriguez, United Farm Workers president. “He broke his promise to the millions of immigrants and Latinos who are looking for him to lead on this issue in the wake of Republicans’ dysfunction and obstruction.”
While Rodriguez pledges to continue working to support Democrats in November, Sherry isn’t so sure.
“It is hard to believe this litany of high expectations and broken promises will be mended by the end of the year,” Sherry said.
Meanwhile, Republican leadership is calling this action a political ploy rather than a real response to voter outrage. Recent polls find that Americans not only oppose executive action on immigration issues, but also that they think Congress should stop the president from doing. A larger 62 percent of voters opposed President Obama’s plan to unilaterally grant amnesty to countless millions of illegal immigrants and, further, said Congress should stop him in court if he tried to go ahead with it.
“There is a never a ‘right’ time for the president to declare amnesty by executive action, but the decision to simply delay this deeply-controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action until after the election — instead of abandoning the idea altogether — smacks of raw politics,” House Speaker John Boehner said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is now beginning to pull away from Democratic challenger Alison Lunderg in Kentucky Senate polls, noted that Obama is simply saying “he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections.”
If the Republicans retake control of the U.S. Senate, then it far more likely that GOP leadership could hold the president accountable on future executive actions. If, however, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) remains the majority leader in the Senate, it is unlikely any action other than a lawsuit would be pursued in response. But lawsuits take years to move through the system, and millions of illegal immigrants would already be attending public schools, receiving social welfare benefits and perhaps even on a path to enfranchisement.
“I know that the president is determined to act, and when he does I support a broad use of his authority to fix as much of our broken immigration system as he can through executive action,” Reid said in a statement.
Still, many activists are furious over the latest broken promise, but pledge to move forward with lobbying efforts.
The PICO National Network’s Campaign for Citizenship, which is one of the largest Hispanic faith-based grassroots networks, expressed frustration and accused Obama and Senate Democrats of using Latinos.
“The odds of us being let down by President Obama were high,” said Eddie Carmona, the group’s campaign manager. “The president and the Senate Democrats have made it very clear that undocumented immigrants and Latinos are simply viewed as political pawns.”
While Carmona says he, too, will continue to work to affect change on the issue, others remain to outraged to speculate on what they will do next.
“The president’s latest broken promise is another slap to the face of the Latino and immigrant community,” said Cristina Jimenez, the head of immigration rights group United We Dream. “Where we have demanded leadership and courage from both Democrats and the president, we’ve received nothing but broken promises and a lack of political backbone.”
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The U.S. and Mexico should have reciprocity in their treatment of people who enter the country illegally or enter the country and commit a crime. Let's use U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi as the standard.