On Sept. 17, President Obama announced a plan to use executive action to naturalize the 8.8 million immigrants in the United States of America eligible to become legal permanent residents. With the 2016 election looming, this push for immigrant voters could have a detrimental effect on the Republican Party.
President Obama’s use of executive action in this plan is an abuse of power that destroys our system of checks and balances. Immigrants should have a normalized path to legal citizenship, not one that is politicized with the agenda of disrupting the presidential election.
Immigrants to the United States have traditionally voted along Democratic Party lines, and this group shares the same characteristics. Of the 10 leading departure countries, eight are either Latin American or Asian.
Both of these groups of people vote predominantly democratic, with the 2012 election showing 71 percent of Latino Americans and 73 percent of Asian Americans voting for democratic candidates.
Two of the top Republican nominees, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, have vocalized support for mass deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the U.S., among other calls for securing our border and decreasing the amount of immigrants who are granted citizenship.
With that view among leaders of the Republican Party for the 2016 election, voters sympathetic to immigration will be polarized to vote against these candidates.
With this political move that looks more like something Frank Underwood would do than that of proper American politics, President Obama’s actions disrupt our country’s democratic policies.
Obama has stated that his actions are similar to that of past Democratic and Republican presidents. But to whom exactly is he referring?
In 1986 the Reagan administration, in cooperation with Bush Sr., approved the expedited process of naturalizing 1.5 million immigrants. This action was taken due to ambiguities in the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which caused immigrant families in the United States to be separated and deported according to labor abilities.
The difference here is that President Reagan was using executive action to clear up the misconstruction of a Congressional bill; he was working in conjunction with the plans and desires of Congress.
President Obamais using his executive action to sidestep Congress and reach goals that are incoherent with our nation’s political schedule. This abuse of power removes the ability of Congress to set its own agenda. Rather than simply recommending legislation, which is within his power, the president is enabling the White House to take legal action despite there being any legislation to support it.
Rather than politicizing the naturalization process in the year leading to a presidential election, immigration efforts should be made through natural processes by Congress, not a partisan effort to disrupt the Republican candidates’ paths.