Obama will use executive order to shield 5 million illegals tonight .

[Derka]

I think that if a business is hiring illegal aliens they should pay a stiff penalty when caught. As it is now they get a light slap on the wrist at best.

Start with the 537 men and women who constitute your legislative branch of government. You probably wouldn't be to shocked that many of them use illegals for cleaning/nanny work/etc.

[iamgine]

What are the arguments for and against this?

[stalkerforlife]

Everyone should be allowed here.

If they commit crimes, put them in jail. Same with naturalized Americans.

[dkmwise]

There's no perfect solution to this, but I'll agree with one thing he said: if Congress gave a damn about getting immigration reform done, he'd have had a bill on his desk already.

Truth is Congress cares not a single shit about immigration reform because...they're Congress. Republicans will thwart and whine at every possible turn in hopes of putting things off until a Republican has a shot at winning the White House in 2016 while Democrats will point and whine and similarly do nothing.

You could say the same thing that if he really gave a damn that he could have had any bill pass between 2009-11 when the dems has a super majority in the house and senate. Or gave executive order at anypoint over the last 5-6 years. Or for that matter congress should have fixed this for the last 10-20 years. And with the last bill the house said they'd pass it if they took out that people can get full citizenship and instead said they could become legal permanent residents but the dems wouldn't budge on that point.

Both parties are at fault because despite what the news keeps saying this issue has been much longer that the last year.

[Derka]

You could say the same thing that if he really gave a damn that he could have had any bill pass between 2009-11 when the dems has a super majority in the house and senate. Or gave executive order at anypoint over the last 5-6 years. Or for that matter congress should have fixed this for the last 10-20 years. And with the last bill the house said they'd pass it if they took out that people can get full citizenship and instead said they could become legal permanent residents but the dems wouldn't budge on that point.

Both parties are at fault because despite what the news keeps saying this issue has been much longer that the last year.

Absolutely true on all accounts. I didn't say the Mouthpiece in Chief was blameless in all of this by any stretch; he's not. But the hypocrisy of a Congress whining about executive orders when they themselves are petulant and ineffective in their dealings with anybody is pretty stunning...and that's all we're going to be hearing about for the next few months.

[dkmwise]

Absolutely true on all accounts. I didn't say the Mouthpiece in Chief was blameless in all of this by any stretch; he's not. But the hypocrisy of a Congress whining about executive orders when they themselves are petulant and ineffective in their dealings with anybody is pretty stunning...and that's all we're going to be hearing about for the next few months.

True enough.

I always find it fascinating that I can sit down with someone who has the exact opposite political opinions that I do and we can completely agree on just as many important things that we disagree on and I just think, why doesn't congress first try and fix all the things that most people can come to terms on, and save some of the more explosive stuff for later. Makes you think they really don't want to do anything except yell and get reelected.

[Patrick Chewing]

Everyone should be allowed here.

Legally.


These 5 million were here, illegally. Understand?

[kentatm]

You could say the same thing that if he really gave a damn that he could have had any bill pass between 2009-11 when the dems has a super majority in the house and senate.

That really isn't true. It was only during 2009 and 2010 they had it and out of those 2 years they really only had a potential filibuster proof majority for about 5 months due to Ted Kennedy's illness/death and Norm Coleman's demand for a recount vs Al Franken (which was a purposeful and successful attempt to keep Dems from being able to vote on anything w/o risking a filibuster b/c it was pretty clear he wasn't going to win the recount)

[senelcoolidge]

This is going to hurt people that need jobs and people that are poor. This is bad for blacks and other minorities that have high numbers in the lower social economic brackets. I don't think the solution is to bring more poor low skill people into a country. But hey I guess this will keep certain people in power and the rich keep getting richer by doing this too.

[KevinNYC]

How do you feel about this? Is Obama over stepping his boundaries?

The answer to the second question is clearly no and there's a lot of law behind it.

The thing that people don't understand is Congress does not provide enough funds to deport 5 million people in a year. The funding can cover about 400,000 deportations a year. So how to prioritize these cases is what is being talked about. This is not about a path to citizenship.

So this debate is about "prosectuorial discretion." If we can do 400,000 deportations, which ones should we do? Prosecutorial discretion is fairly well established and immigration law grants wide discretion to the executive and this has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Deporting criminals might be considered to higher priority than breaking up a family.

My understanding of the plan talked about tonight is to defer action on some people's status. It's not making them citizens.

For this to be illegal, Congress would need to rewrite the immigration laws much more strictly.

[KevinNYC]

You can hear a debate on the issue of prosecutorial discretion and immigration here.

http://www.fed-soc.org/multimedia/de...ed-event-video

[dkmwise]

The answer to the second question is clearly no and there's a lot of law behind it.

The thing that people don't understand is Congress does not provide enough funds to deport 5 million people in a year. The funding can cover about 400,000 deportations a year. So how to prioritize these cases is what is being talked about. This is not about a path to citizenship.

So this debate is about "prosectuorial discretion." If we can do 400,000 deportations, which ones should we do? Prosecutorial discretion is fairly well established and immigration law grants wide discretion to the executive and this has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Deporting criminals might be considered to higher priority than breaking up a family.

My understanding of the plan talked about tonight is to defer action on some people's status. It's not making them citizens.

For this to be illegal, Congress would need to rewrite the immigration laws much more strictly.

For many years now they have pretty much only deported people who were previously deported or convicted of a FELONY. The people in question here had almost no chance to ever be deported anyway. This new order does not allow them to become citizens, but does allow them to apply for legal permanent residency, which allows them to legally live and work here for life, just not the ability to vote

[dkmwise]

That really isn't true. It was only during 2009 and 2010 they had it and out of those 2 years they really only had a potential filibuster proof majority for about 5 months due to Ted Kennedy's illness/death and Norm Coleman's demand for a recount vs Al Franken (which was a purposeful and successful attempt to keep Dems from being able to vote on anything w/o risking a filibuster b/c it was pretty clear he wasn't going to win the recount)

My bad, off by one year. Regardless the bigger point was that both parties have had many chances to deal with this before now, like the news is making it out. During Bush's term too there were times when each party had control of house and senate and neither party did anything then either

[Ne 1]

Overstepping his boundaries? If it's within his powers how is he overstepping anything?

He said so himself before. "With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that

[Ne 1]

But now what he's saying is what he's going to do is simply sign an executive order telling border patrol and homeland security to not enforce our immigration laws on the books. That's an impeccable offense. I know Republicans wouldn't want to impeach him for political reasons, but that's their only remedy under the constitution if the President breaks the law.