Will Obama Use an Executive Order on Immigration?

The need for immigration reform should be apparent to all Americans at this point. With President Obama’s recent announcement, we may can expect him to speak this week on his possible executive action to the immigration system.

The NY Times reports that Obama’s immigration proposal would ‘offer legal documents to as many as five million immigrants in the country illegally’. Unlike the amnesty legislation of 1986, Obama’s executive action would not provide any permanent immigration status or citizenship. Since the House denied the immigration overhaul earlier this year, the President feels that executive action may be his last resort in the immigration crisis at hand.

The Obama Administration and White House officials have said that the presidents immigration proposal will be aimed at giving proper legal paperwork to aliens that have Citizen children and fear deportation. All officials have commented saying that the proposal will not make entering the United States easier, it is only to address the aliens that are already here; foreigners caught at the border will still deported.

Numerous politicians have voiced their opinions on what will happen should the president go through with the executive action on immigration. Texas Representative Lamar Smith says that “this executive order would be a violation of the president’s oath of office and a blatant abuse of power… the president has sworn an oath of office to uphold the laws, but now he is planning to rewrite them on his own”.