The President Must Act in the Face of GOP Inaction on Immigration
On immigration reform, the president will act on his own if he has to. The president made these comments in a Rose Garden speech yesterday in response to House Speaker John Boehner’s announcement that the House would not be taking any votes on immigration reform this year. President Obama said he will use whatever executive authority he has to fix our broken immigration system and provide some relief the millions of aspring Americans facing deportation. Watch the president’s remarks below:
Janet Murguía, NCLR’s President and CEO, responded to the president’s remarks in a statment in which she welcomed this latest move.
“By refusing to act on immigration reform, House Republication leadership has given the president no other choice but to take administrative action,” said Murguía. “They have the ability to restore the rule of law by passing a permanent legislative solution on immigration reform, and have instead chosen to perpetuate a broken system that causes enormous and unnecessary human suffering for the Latino community. They willfully disregard that passing immigration reform is in the nation’s best economic interests and that the majority of Americans across a broad political spectrum overwhelmingly support immigration reform. With House Republican leadership continuing to obstruct progress on this issue, NCLR welcomes executive actions from the White House to ease the pain that our community is forced to endure every day.”
With two million deportations that have occurred and more than 277,000 deportations of parents of U.S. citizen chilren, Murguia made clear that our community can no longer wait. We will work with the Obama administration to develop and implement executive actions that will limit deportations to those responsible for serious crimes or to those who pose threats to our national security. We also call on the president to build upon the successes of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by offering work authorization and relief from deportation to those who can show family connections to U.S. citizens and others who are in the United States lawfully.
“We urge Speaker Boehner to reconsider his decision,” Murguía said. “And if he does, we stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to fashion a bipartisan solution. However, our community cannot continue to wait on legislation while our families are ripped apart.”