Obama has few options to protect young immigrants
ASSOCIATED PRESS
With just weeks left in office, the pressure is mounting for President Barack Obama to do something to solidify the future of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country as children who could face imminent deportation under the Trump administration.
WASHINGTON >> Barack Obama is under pressure during his final weeks as president to do something — anything — to secure the future of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who could face deportation under the Trump administration. His options appear few.
At least 50 congressional Democrats are pushing Obama to take the rare if not unprecedented step of granting pardons to the young immigrants who have stepped forward to identify themselves in exchange for a promise that they’d be safe from deportation. The White House, though, has repeatedly ruled that out.
Several Republican lawmakers are crafting legislative proposals to solidify the place of these immigrants, sometimes called Dreamers, before Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. Similar efforts have repeatedly failed, even with Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, so the likelihood of a legislative Hail Mary isn’t great.
That leaves more than 741,000 immigrants wondering what’s next.
Trump’s plans for Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are unclear. As a candidate, he pledged an immediate end to what he called an “illegal executive amnesty.” But as the president-elect, he has softened that stance.
“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump told Time magazine last month. “They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Obama’s program allowed young immigrants who came to the United States as children to come forward and go through background checks in exchange for a promise they would be safe from deportation and allowed to apply for work permits. They must reapply for the program and work permits every two years.
While the government promised approved immigrants that they wouldn’t face deportation, the program does not provide a legal immigration status. Under Trump, their personal information, and that of some relatives, could soon be readily accessible to immigration enforcement officials.
When Obama announced the plan in 2012, he said he was taking executive action because Congress hadn’t acted.
“This is not amnesty, this is not immunity,” Obama said at the time. He called the program a “stopgap measure” that would protect young immigrants from deportation while his immigration agencies focused enforcement efforts on criminal immigrants and those who pose a threat to public safety.
The Homeland Security Department made clear then that a future administration could do away with the program.
The pardons being pushed by Democratic lawmakers are seen as a non-starter.
“Ultimately, it wouldn’t protect a single soul from deportation, so it’s not an answer here,” Cecilia Munoz, Obama’s top immigration adviser, told the Center for Migration Studies. “I know people are hoping for an answer, but by its very nature, the use of executive authority in this way is subject to the will of the executive” — soon to be Trump.
Even if Obama was inclined to offer pardons for immigration violations, that alone wouldn’t change the predicament these young immigrants are in because the president doesn’t have the power to grant someone legal immigration status on his own.
32 responses to “Obama has few options to protect young immigrants”
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What about protecting Americans?
WORST potus in American history!
January 20, 2017 19 days to #MAGA
IRT KeoniGohan, fully agree with your post. Hawaii’s born President Obama had the opportunity to clarify the U.S. Constitution on women entering the United States pregnant, giving birth in the United States and thus have a child as a citizen of the United States. The U.S. Constitution is moot on this issue and the U.S. Supreme Court has never taken up the issue. Once this issue on children being born in the United States by legal or illegal women is resolved, then we can begin work on the issue of “Dreamers”.
A great point/story but not kept up enough in the news. Having said that resolving that issue will be difficult being that it is a Liberal Baby Indoctrination to Increase Their Voting Base mandate…or a BIITVB. (I just made that up).
#MAGA
kuroiwaj – How could you possibly make up something like this? The Constitution is not “moot” on this issue – whatever that means in your mind.
If a person is born here, that person is a United States citizen. SCOTUS has never “taken up the issue” because there’s no issue to take up.
Why do you do this?
That infamous Klastri got it right. But coming here illegally to give birth is fraud.
Klastri, your comment raises serious questions about whether you are or were a lawyer. You say “If a person is born here, that person is a United States citizen.” The citizenship clause in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” If a person born here is a United States citizen as you claim, please explain why the framers of the Constitution found it necessary to include “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof?” The framers were very smart people and did not include superfluous staff in the Constitution. There is a meaning or purpose for this phrase. I believe it was intended to exclude from citizenship children born to foreign diplomats and others temporarily in the United States for business or other reason and was never intended to grant automatic citizenship to children born to people here illegally. The Supreme Court needs to take up the issue and rule on the meaning of this phrase. I believe this will happen during Trump’s first term and that the Supreme Court will rule that children born to people here illegally are not citizens of the United States and instead are citizens of the countries from which the illegals came and whose jurisdiction they still are subject.
media please use the correct term illegal immigrant.
send them back.
taxpayers are overburdened…
what???
immigrants don’t need protection.
oh, i get it, it’s the illegal immigrants, the law breakers that obama is targeting for the next presidential election.
It is their parents sin and they should all be deported with their parents. It is comparable to where parents stole money and became well to do – the criminally obtained advantage has to be taken away from the whole family.
Completely unfair to all of those children waiting years to gain legal entry.
Send them home w/ther illegal parents. Same for those born here who’s parents are illegal.
So what’s wrong with old illegal aliens. This is age discrimination, Mr. Young President.
Deport illegal aliens !
Bougus headline YOUNG IMMIGRANTS. Should say YOUNG ILLIGAL ALIENS. Remember, an immigrant is here legally, with documentation and legal permission from the government, on a pathway to citizenship. It’s impossible to be an illegal immigrant. Alien yes, immigrant no. Dream on DREAMERS, you’re going back to where you came from. You can reapply, but you’ll be at the end of the line.
He has several options.
1) Don’t make promises he cannot keep.
2) Quit using his pen. What he does by EO can be undone by EO.
3) Go quietly.
#3…..impossible, no way, nevah happen.
LOL….True Dat.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year back at you!! ^5 🙂
Obama should have been enforcing the federal laws for the past 8 years and states that hinder enforcement of federal law should be held accountable with their leadership being prosecuted. This “sanctuary city” BS should never have been in existence to begin with. Now it’s a problem that the new POTUS has to clean up because the outgoing one has been incompetent.
Do we want/need to encourage more ILLEGALS storming our borders ?
Millions illegal Africans are given asylum in Europe, drawing millions more – the consequence of leniency. They are fleeing their countries which they have collectively ruined. The ruin of Europe is next.
Never before has the US had a president so concerned with protecting the rights of Muslims and illegal immigrants over actual US citizens. He is the worst president in my lifetime.
They need to return to their home countries and get in the back of the line just like the people who immigrate legally. Republicans are just as guilty as democrats for allowing this to happen.
Send them ALL packing!
The headline references Young Immigrants – It should state if it means illegal or legal? Typical liberal intentional oversight.
Notice how the Liberal media always refers to the Illegals as mere “Immigrants”, masking the FACT that they are here illegally. This doesn’t just happen by chance. It is part of a broader effort to bring legitimacy to those who have broken OUR laws and somehow feel ENTITLED to citizenship On Demand, or else they’ll cry RACISM! Hogwash! We don’t owe these criminals a fricken thing. Go back to the end of the line and wait your turn like millions of others have done lawfully. No Sob stories, no excuses. We can’t afford to save the whole world. We do so at the peril of our own rightful citizens.
Somehow leftists have succeeded to infiltrate the mainstream media. Just like teachers and professors – who poison the minds of our youths – are 90% Democrats.
Yes, it’s very obvious from your writing that you haven’t spent much time with either teachers or professors.
Sadly, very obvious.
How’s about take care of the veterans, elderly, homeless. First.
Yes, Les, contact your congresspeople about helping Veterans. It may prove difficult to find support for Veterans from your fellow Repubs, as their record for doing so is horrid. Democrats aren’t clean on the subject, but Repubs are horrid.
seaborn – You are correct. Now the Republicans are talking (again) about privatizing the VA, so ill and old veterans would be forced to argue with insurance companies (who would be trying to make as large a profit as possible) rather than obtaining care without the interference of a profit-making motive.
Great idea, Republicans!
Klassless, you called me a liar a while back when I rightly referred to the casting call for that stupid musical Hamilton, calling for people of color only, and having a black guy playing the part of Hamilton.
It would be ok to have a white guy play the part of let’s say Malcolm X in a musical, with a casting call stipulating whites only?
An apology would be nice.