Ten Things to Know About Obama's Immigration Actions

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"

On June 27, 2013, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive bipartisan immigration reform bill by a vote of 68-32.   In the 17 months since then, the Tea Party-controlled House of Representatives neither acted on the Senate bill nor provided one of their own.  Last Thursday night, President Obama announced that he would be taking executive action on immigration.  The President formally signed these actions on Friday.  Here are 10 things to know about Obama's immigration plan.

1.  The immigration plan addresses three areas: additional resources for border security, an "easier and faster" way for "high-skilled immigrants, graduates and entrepreneurs to stay",  and dealing responsibly "with the millions of undocumented immigrants who already live in our country."

2.  The executive order will protect from deportation about 40% of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants.  The largest group, estimated to be between 2.5 and 3.4 million, consists of immigrant parents who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and have children who either were born in the U.S. or are legal permanent residents. An additional 700,000 will benefit from an expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (aka "the Dreamer program"), a program that allows certain immigrants who were brought into the country as children to stay and work on a temporary basis.  [1, 2]

3. The president’s executive action offers deportation relief for the largest number of undocumented immigrants in recent history, but not the opportunity to obtain permanent residency or citizenship. Only Congress has the authority to offer a path to legal status.  [2]

4. If a future administration reverses course or if Congress passes an immigration law, the protection from deportation could be taken away. [2]

5. None of the immigrants who will be given new legal protections will get government subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act, nor will they be allowed to buy insurance via the state and federal exchanges.  Non-citizens are not eligible for Medicaid.  However, under a system informally known as “emergency Medicaid,” hospitals are reimbursed when they provide emergency and maternity care for people who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid if they were in the US legally. [3, 4]

6.  The president has the constitutional authority to decide to not proceed with deportations. It has always been within the president’s discretion to decide whether to have the Department of Justice enforce a particular law. As the Supreme Court declared in United States v. Nixon, “the Executive Branch has exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to prosecute a case.” [5]

7. The executive actions on immigration cannot be directly "defunded".  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) agency is entirely self-funded through the fees it collects on immigration applications. The Congressional appropriation process has nothing to with it.  [6]

8. The additional border security measures mentioned by Obama include "continuing the surge of resources" to the border and focusing on the "deportation of people who threaten national security and public safety" and recent border crossers, [7]

9.  The "easier and faster" way for "high-skilled immigrants, graduates and entrepreneurs to stay" includes some tweaks to the current system but notably does not include an increase in H-1B visas, designed for temporary high-skilled workers. Congressional approval is needed for that.  Only half of those who applied for a H-!B visa this year received one; the permits disappeared in days. [8]

10.  Contrary to the fact-free myths spewing from right-wing critics, studies have shown that immigration has a positive impact on native-born workers and boosts productivity; immigration is not connected to the unemployment rate; and immigrants are predicted to pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits.  [9]

Powerless to defund the executive actions and sure to lose an impeachment vote in the Senate, Republicans will turn to obstruction and to the courts.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, has talked about opposing Obama's actions by blocking all of his nominations.  Hopefully this will provide a wake-up call to Senator Reed to begin forcing votes on all the pending nominations before the 114th Congress is seated.  Judicial, executive branch and ambassadorial nominations that have already cleared by their committees have been slowed to a crawl by Republican actions.  With the Senate majority in January, Republicans will be able to block everything if they so chose.

As for the courts., prosecutorial discretion not withstanding, I imagine Republicans are scouring the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to find some basis, any basis, to proceed with a legal challenge.  They will have to do their homework thoroughly - Administration lawyers have been working for months to make sure the President's actions are legally unassailable. But then, who knows what will happen when the case reaches the politicized Supreme Court ?  The conservative majority have shown a remarkable tendency towards rulings that favor keeping Republicans in power.

References
[1] New York Times, Nov. 15   [2] Pew Research Center, Nov. 20   [3] New York Times, Nov. 19

[4] Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 20   [5]  New Republic, Nov. 18   [6] The Hill, Nov. 20

[7] White House Fact Sheet, Nov. 20   [8] Boston Globe. Nov. 24   [9] Media Matters for America, Nov. 21

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons; caption is from Emma Lazarus' poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty plaque