The president put the ball back in Congress’ court on immigration with an executive action on immigration that will keep 5 million undocumented immigrants from being deported.
By issuing his executive order the president issued a challenge to the U.S. Congress to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Act that would at least start to fix a broken immigration system in this country.
Even though the GOP says it was illegal for the president to do this, and they may challenge him in court, the President is saying to them, “pass a law and I will sign it into law”. Well, maybe.
The Senate passed an immigration law several months ago with 68 out of 100 votes. But after it was sent to the House, the Speaker of the House did not allow it to come to the floor for a vote, even though most felt it would have easily passed.
Yet the GOP is calling the President wrong for making this move because they say it’s unconstitutional for him to do it. Well, how is it right for the Speaker of the House to block a vote on a bill that the majority of elected officials and the majority of the people supported.
The GOP says they will not support anything that doesn’t have a strong border security attached to it. Well this bill passed by the Senate doubled the border security.
But one thing that sparked my interest this week was one Hispanic U.S. Representative pointed out that when the GOP talks about borders they only talk about the one between Mexico and the U.S., but they should be concerned about the borders between Canada, and people coming into this country illegally from overseas, of which he says far out number the people coming in from Mexico. And they are much more of a threat to this country’s security.
However, the President’s action leaves another 6 million illegal aliens unaccounted for. But the President stated that he was more concerned with keeping families intact while going after the criminals. People who have been in this country five years or more were targeted.
This new action will protect the millions of people who came to this country as children with their parents illegally, but only know the U.S. as their homes. This would automatically stop them from being deported, while moving their parents to the back of the line of citizenship. Also legal permanent residents parents, would also be eligible. Whatever that means. And others who have been here for five or more years. Anyone with a criminal background will be deported immediately.
I’m not totally clear why Latinos would be in favor of this, because it only stops deportation if caught. Most of these people have been in this country for years without being caught; they don’t pay taxes, they are going to school, K through 12 as well as college without being detected. So why is this good for them? Now they are asked to turn themselves in. For what? They don’t get automatic citizenship? How does this help them?
I personally feel that no country, state or person has the right to block a man from doing what is best for himself and his family. If coming from Mexico to the U.S., from the U.S. to Mexico, or from Russia to the U.S. or vice versa unless that person is doing harm to someone else they should have the right to compete against whoever is already there. This country is made up of people from all over the world coming here to better their lives, and no one stopped them. Only the Native Americans, (Indians), can say this is their country, but even they came from someplace else before they settle in North American.
I’m really proud of the president in his decision to take the fight to the GOP instead of just setting back and waiting for them to challenge him. Hopefully he will do the same when they try to repeal Obama Care, the Affordable Health Care Act. This law needs a lot of changes but not repealing.
According to most reports the recent voter turnout for the 2014 elections across this country was the worst in 37 years across the board, but especially among Democrats. It makes me wonder why the GOP is talking with so much confidence that the voters selected them. No, the voters chose to stay at home, because they weren’t satisfied with the Republican candidates, nor the Democratic candidates.
The people are tired of a do nothing D.C.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
