President Obama’s decision to postpone executive action on immigration policy is entirely political and is not only designed to salvage the midterm elections but prevent amnesty from being torpedoed as an issue for years to come, according to Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian.
One of the leading activists against what he considers a bipartisan push toward amnesty, Krikorian is also correcting what he sees as Obama’s badly misleading statements about the current state of our southern border and this summer border surge.
Earlier this summer, Obama promised to act unilaterally in response to the illegal influx of young people from Mexico and other Latin American countries. He promised a plan at or shortly after Labor Day.
On Sunday edition of ‘Meet the Press,’ new host Chuck Todd suggested the delay in executive action was designed to help Democrats struggling to hold onto their majority in the U.S. Senate. Obama said “that’s not the reason” but later admitted “the politics did shift mid-summer” because of the attention to the border crisis.
Krikorian says there are two major issues at work and both are clearly political.
“If he were to unilaterally, lawlessly amnesty millions of illegal aliens, which is what he is planning to do, the Democrats would lose the Senate. It would pretty much be guaranteed. It’s already pretty close and that would be like throwing a hand grenade into the election,” said Krikorian, who says there’s an even bigger danger for Obama to act before Election Day than just risking a GOP Senate majority.
“By doing this big amnesty before the election, he would make the midterm elections a referendum on amnesty and increased immigration,” he said.
“By making the election a referendum on his amnesty and immigration plans and losing, (it) sends a message to the public and to politicians that essentially the people have spoken and this is something they don’t want,” said Krikorian, believing lawmakers would then avoid the debate at all costs.
In the ‘Meet the Press” interview, Obama also tried to assure Americans the surge of young people entering the country is now under control and the border in general is secure.
“The number of people apprehended crossing our borders has plummeted of the course of the decade. It’s far lower than it was ten years ago. In terms of these unaccompanied children, we’ve actually, systematically worked through the problem so that the surge in June dropped in July and dropped further in August. It’s now below what it was last year,” said Obama.
Krikorian says there are two major problems with the president’s characterization of this summer’s crisis. He says the latest numbers of young people entering the country illegally are down over the past couple of months but many experts attribute that to people waiting for the weather to cool down so they can avoid crossing deserts in the dead of summer.
Second, he says people need to understand the president’s definition of working through the problem.
“They’ve worked through it by letting tens of thousands of illegal immigrants stay. Supposedly they’re going to have hearings, which they may or may not show up for, hearings that are scheduled now for 2017, 2018, 2019. Do you think some teenager who has a hearing three years from now is actually going to show up and say, ‘OK Sir, you can deport me now?’ It’s complete fantasy.” said Krikorian.
He says the number one reason why there will likely be another surge is because this one was a huge success.
“What they did was wave in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants because they had the opportunity to do so. They very fact that they did that is one more example of this administration’s out-of-control lawlessness,” said Krikorian.
When and if Obama does issue executive orders to change immigration laws, Krikorian expects it to focus on two priorities: legalizing many who are here illegally and loosening the rules on future immigration.
When it comes to addressing those illegally in the U.S., Krikorian says people need to be clear that what this administration will propose is amnesty.
“What the president is suggesting is actually giving work cards, Social Security numbers, drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. That is amnesty. What they’re talking about is giving it to the parents and siblings of people who got this DREAM Act amnesty, which he lawlessly announced two years ago, and potentially to all illegal aliens who have U.S.-born kids,” said Krikorian.
When it comes to paving the way for easier immigration in the future, Krikorian says the president would once again be violating the constitutional separation of powers.
“It would be the president making up bogus interpretations of immigration law in order to dramatically increase the number of illegal immigrants coming into the United States beyond the one million each year that we already get. You may think that’s a good idea. There are people who do. I don’t, but that’s a plausible decision. But it’s not the president’s decision to make on his own,” said Krikorian.
Despite some progress, Krikorian says now is not the time for any of what Obama is pushing.
“We have so much fixing to do there that the idea we have now done everything we need to do to fix the border and fix the rest of our immigration system is absurd,” he said.
