Nov. 14--House Speaker John Boehner says President Barack Obama would be "inviting big trouble" by taking unilateral action on immigration. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says it would be "like waving a red flag in front of a bull."
Well, get ready, because here it comes: word came Thursday that Obama will assert his executive authority, perhaps as early as next week, to spare up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation.
Obama plans to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" to declare certain groups of immigrants a low priority for enforcement. That was the basis of a 2012 order that allowed the Dreamers -- brought here illegally as children -- to remain in the U.S.
The president's next action could extend the same protection to the Dreamers' parents, to the parents of American citizens or legal residents and to others with family ties, certain work skills and no criminal record. It also reportedly includes shifting money to border security.
We have urged Obama not to alienate lawmakers by acting alone on immigration, and we stand by that position. Enacting temporary and incomplete fixes through executive fiat will assure that meaningful, comprehensive reform will not happen on his watch.
But we share the president's impatience, his exasperation even.
The immigration system needs a much broader overhaul -- one that addresses the visa system, workplace enforcement, interior security and the long-term legal status of undocumented immigrants. That is the job of Congress. House Republicans have done next to nothing to advance those reforms.
"I think the president choosing to do a lot of things unilaterally on immigration would be a big mistake," Boehner said two days after the election. "It's an issue a lot of my members want to address legislatively."
What's stopping them? Republicans didn't need to win control of the Senate to pass immigration reform. The Senate passed an excellent, bipartisan bill in 2013. There's a good chance it would pass the Republican-controlled House, even today. But Boehner deferred to members of his caucus who insist immigration reform should be done in several smaller bills, which they never got around to passing.
In January, House Republicans came up with a list of "standards for immigration reform" -- the outline for another legislative package that failed to materialize. That was especially disappointing because the Republican "standards" had seemed to produce a breakthrough: For the first time, Democrats in Congress signaled a willingness to accept something short of a special path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants who are here illegally.
The truth is that there is broad consensus on immigration reform, in Congress and on Main Street. Americans want a secure border, a fair, orderly system for admitting new immigrants and some sort of legal status for law-abiding workers who are here illegally. Businesses want a flexible visa system that meets their labor needs.
For more than a year, Obama has threatened to take matters into his own hands. He backed off when Republicans promised they'd deliver on immigration reform after the primaries. He backed off again when Democrats complained that he would hurt them in November, but vowed, with stunning candor, to take action after the votes were counted. Now it appears he is poised to follow through.
Where is the House Republicans' immigration reform proposal? They could be working to pass it right now, instead of threatening a budget fight, a government shutdown, impeachment. They could be doing the job they were elected to do, instead of throwing a temper tantrum.
