posted 09-06-2014 11:33 PM                  

Little had gone right since President Barack Obama announced in June that he would take unilateral action to fix the immigration system. But a flurry of calls for delay, delivered privately to the White House and publicly through the press in the last week, made it impossible for Obama to move forward, according to senior administration officials, congressional aides and immigration advocates.
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Saturday morning’s announcement that executive action on immigration reform would be pushed until after Election Day was the end of a slow-motion unraveling that began with five words in June, when Obama pledged to act “before the end of summer.”

Obama had barely exited the sun-soaked Rose Garden before White House aides, huddled under a small patch of shade, tried to downplay the rigidity of the deadline. But the damage was done, solidifying a timeline that Democrats feared more and more as Election Day neared.

Worried about alienating Hispanic voters, few Democrats publicly voiced their concern about making such a potentially controversial move as Democrats fought to retain control of the Senate. But the anxiety — confined, at first, to the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents — spread far beyond the key battleground states.

Public and private polling showed that unilateral action on immigration would harm Democrats locked in tight races in Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Alaska. If Democrats lost control of the Senate, immigration would be blamed for the defeat, the newly-installed Republican Congress would attempt to overturn the order and the rest of the Obama presidency would look even bleaker.

It was a stunning turnaround from two months ago.

When Obama strode into the Rose Garden in June, his shift to executive action didn’t seem crazy. Quite the contrary: It made sense to many Democrats.

He could motivate beleaguered Democrats and boost turnout among Latinos, labor and a wider progressive base that’s increasingly identified immigration reform as a top cause.

But the White House didn’t like the timeline. SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADMINSTRATION OFFICIALS PRIVATELY BLAMED Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for creating the expectation that Obama should take steps by the end of the summer. Facing pressure from activists in February, Durbin and Schumer were the first senior Senate Democrats to embrace the calls for executive action if the House failed to pass a bill by August.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also endorsed the demand for late-summer action, putting him at odds with Democrats fighting for their political survival in Republican-leaning states.

So when Obama did the same, it looked like Democrats were finally unified.

“If Congress will not do their job, at least we can do ours,” Obama said, adding that he had asked Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson for a slate of options. “I expect their recommendations before the end of summer and I intend to adopt those recommendations without further delay.”

[I]Senior administration officials privately blamed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for creating the expectation that Obama should take steps by the end of the summer.[I]

BLAME IT ON YOUR OWN PARTY WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF OPPONENTS. THIS GUY HASN'T MADE A SINGLE MISTAKE YET. AT LEAST NONE THAT ARE HIS FAULT.

posted 09-07-2014 05:18 AM                  

As for Horrible Harry Reid, Dumbell Dick Durbin, Chuckie Schumer....they are 3 giant dickheads

posted 09-08-2014 09:15 AM                  

Immigration-reform advocates expressed their objections Saturday to President Obama’s delaying executive action to change U.S. immigration policy, including cries of bitter disappointment and accusations that the president has caved to election-year politics.

“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.”

In an interview taped for NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama rejected the charge that the delay was meant to protect Democratic candidates worried that his actions would hurt their prospects in tough Senate races.

However, Obama did concede that politics played a role, claiming that a partisan fight in July over how to address an influx of unaccompanied minors at the border had created the impression that there was an immigration crisis and thus a volatile climate for taking the measures he had promised to take.

"The truth of the matter is -- is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem," he 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, the delay resulted in widespread reaction from across the country and the political spectrum.

Obama said June 30 that he would take matters into his own hands before the end of summer, amid the GOP-led House stalling reform legislation and thousands of unaccompanied Central American youths trying to illegally cross the southern U.S. border.

“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.”

Rodriguez vowed that his group would continue to “keep fighting and organizing” for reform. But Sherry expressed little optimism that Obama would indeed take action after the November elections, in which Democrats must fend against a strong Republican effort to win a net total of six Senate seats to take control of the chamber.

“It is hard to believe this litany of high expectations and broken promises will be mended by the end of the year,” Sherry said.

Reform advocates want the federal government to change U.S. immigration policy in large part to provide a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million people who have either entered the United States illegally or have overstayed their visas.

The Democrat-controlled Senate passed comprehensive, bipartisan reform legislation in 2013, but such efforts have stalled in the House over the primary concerns of border security and a path to citizenship essentially equaling amnesty.

“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, fighting to keep his Senate seat, suggested 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.”

Democrat National Committee spokesman Michael Czin said the Boehner response and a similar one by the Republican National Committee is “manufactured outrage” and “callous political rhetoric.”

“They can put an end to this whole debate by joining us in passing real immigration reform,” Czin said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rushed to Obama’s defense Saturday afternoon.

“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,” the Nevada Democrat said.

The PICO National Network’s Campaign for Citizenship, one of the country’s largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network, also expressed disappointment in Obama’s reported decision.

“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.”

Still, Carmona vowed that his group also would continue to push for change, despite the “unacceptable delay.”

posted 09-08-2014 09:29 AM                  

Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette is a CNN contributor, Daily Beast columnist and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Follow him on Twitter: @rubennavarrette. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

San Diego (CNN) -- Now that President Barack Obama has broken his promise to take executive action on immigration, and put off the thorny issue until after the midterm elections -- and I predict, for the remainder of his presidency -- many immigration reform advocates are angry, surprised and disappointed.

I'm none of those things. Here's my take: When it comes to Obama and immigration, keep your expectations low. Despite what he says, don't make the mistake of thinking that he actually supports legalizing the undocumented. Finally, whatever he says, don't assume it's the truth.

When it comes to immigration, Obama has a long trail of half-truths and broken promises. In July 2008, the presidential candidate told the National Council of La Raza that, if elected, he would make the issue a top priority and address it within the first 100 days. That didn't happen.

White House officials then moved the goal line to, well, the first term. That didn't happen either.

From 2009 to 2011, Obama told supporters that he couldn't curb deportations because he was "not a king."

Yet, in 2012, eager to re-engage Hispanic voters for his reelection, Obama summoned his inner monarch when he unveiled "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," which gives undocumented young people a temporary reprieve from deportation and work permits.

In 2013, Obama did another about-face and returned to his rhetoric about how he couldn't act alone to stop deportations. He also gave half-hearted support to the Senate immigration bill, which would militarize the border and only legalize about half of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Now, we're in another election year, and Obama is back to cynically using the promise of immigration reform to get Latino voters to turn out. He dangles it like a carrot in front of a donkey pulling a cart. Speaking in the Rose Garden on June 30, Obama bemoaned inaction by the Republican-controlled House and promised to take executive action before the end of summer.

Well, summer is over, and Obama is backing out of the deal.

Some on the left are finally getting the message that Obama is not their amigo.

Cristina Jimenez, the managing director for United We Dream, an advocacy group for undocumented students, told The New York Times: "The president's latest broken promise is another slap to the face of the Latino and immigrant community."

For Obama, the question is never what he can do for the immigration issue but what the immigration issue can do for him.

It's no surprise that some on the left have realized that they have to do for themselves.

Just a few hours before Obama's retreat, I was having breakfast in Southern California with one of the leaders of a prominent grassroots immigrant rights organization. He wanted me to connect his group with Republicans who support immigration reform because it might pressure Obama to act.

I can do one better. Want to get comprehensive immigration reform? Elect a Republican president.

Congress passes laws, but the president sets priorities. Just like Obama did with health care reform, which is why we call the new law "Obamacare" and not "Pelosicare" or "Reidcare."

Once you see through the political fog on the immigration debate, you realize that Republican presidents are a better bet for delivering reform.

Three reasons:

First, ignore what politicians say and watch what they do. Democrats campaign as soft on illegal immigrants, but they're tough on them once in office. Republicans campaign as tough on illegal immigrants, but they're soft on them once in office.

Second, look at history. In 1986, it was a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, who signed an "amnesty" bill into law. Twenty years later, it was another Republican, George W. Bush, who boldly kicked off the modern debate over comprehensive immigration reform by proposing legal status for the undocumented. Meanwhile, it was a Democrat, Bill Clinton, who militarized the border with Operation Gatekeeper in 1994 and signed a 1996 immigration law that made it easier to deport people and harder to return.

Now we have another Democrat, Barack Obama, who has deported more than 2 million people, roped local police into enforcing immigration law through the program known as Secure Communities and shipped thousands of child refugees back to Central America without due process.

Third, understand human nature. Republicans don't love immigrants. But they love business, and business loves immigrants. Meanwhile, Democrats don't hate immigrants. But they love unions, and unions hate immigrants.

Obama: Waiting will make immigration executive action 'more sustainable'

Still, electing the right leaders is only half the job. The rest of it is holding them accountable.

Latinos should be furious at Obama's betrayal. But they should save some anger for themselves for believing the lies.

As for Obama, he continues to insult Latinos with more blame-shifting and double talk. Now he insists that his decision to delay any executive action on immigration wasn't based on politics -- except when it was.

On Sunday, during an appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Obama told moderator Chuck Todd that contrary to earlier reports, he was not trying to help Democrats in Congress keep their seats in November. Instead, he realized that the recent surge of unaccompanied minors across the US-Mexico border changed the political equation.

"The truth of the matter," Obama said, "is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem."

To summarize, the president who didn't have enough courage is blaming his ineptitude on child refugees who had an abundance of it.

Breaking his promise made the President look dishonest. Admitting that it was about politics made him look weak. But blaming it all on the kids made him look pathetic.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/08/opinion/navarrette-obama-immigration-reform-republican/index.html