President Obama’s plan to grant legal status to some five million illegal immigrants through executive action is unlawful, goes directly against the will of the American voters and should be resisted by Congress in any way possible, according to Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
Vaughan also says a brand new CIS report showing both legal and illegal immigrants adding disproportionately to the Medicaid rolls and costing billions of dollars shows now is the time to employ greater scrutiny on who comes into the country, rather than open the gates to millions of illegals.
On Wednesday, reports surfaced that President Obama is preparing a ten-point immigration reform plan that he intends to implement through executive action. In addition to facilitating legal status for highly sought after specialists in a variety of technical fields and advocating for pay raises for Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials, the centerpiece of the Obama plan is to grant legal status to some 4.5 million people in the U.S. illegally is their children were born here or given legal status.
The clear message from the administration is that it does not want to rip apart families by removing illegal immigrants while allowing legal ones to stay, but Vaughan says that argument is deeply flawed.
“The only thing separating these families is their choice is their choice to be here illegally,” said Vaughan, suggesting the way to keep families with illegal immigrants together is to send all of them back to the nations from which they came.
“In many cases, the U.S. citizen children they have were born here to illegal parents. They haven’t been here a long time. We’re talking about small children. They don’t have meaningful ties to this country. The best thing for them to do is to accompany their family member back to their home country and get on with their lives,” she said.
Vaughan says many Americans feel tremendous compassion for the dire conditions many immigrants faced in their own countries, but that doesn’t mean the solution is to open the floodgates into the U.S. at a time of domestic economic challenges.
“People are very sympathetic to living conditions in other countries, but the answer is not to just let everyone come here regardless of our laws. We have Americans who are out of work in those very same kinds of jobs. We also have four and a half million people waiting their turn to come in through the legal immigration system, who have been sponsored by U.S. citizens or American companies who need their skills. Those people should have first access to being able to live here,” said Vaughan.
Besides staunchly opposing the Obama immigration agenda, Vaughan says she is stunned at the political tone deafness on display with Obama.
“It’s really shocking that this is at the top of his agenda after an election in which American voters resoundingly rejected these kinds of policies and sent a message to their elected representatives that immigration enforcement of the laws we have is much more important than providing amnesty for such a large number of people,” said Vaughan.
“It’s really surprising that he would move forward on something so unpopular and would have such a negative effect on American workers, on legal immigrants and on public safety in our communities,” she added.
Congressional Republicans are furious with Obama’s plans for unilateral action. Some have threatened to use the upcoming omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government as leverage against executive action on immigration and possibly defund government departments tasked with enforcing immigration policy. Vaughan hopes the GOP pursues that and any other tactic that could stop Obama in his tracks.
“Congress clearly needs to keep the president on a very short leash because what he is planning is most definitely something that is beyond his authority and certainly contrary to congressional intent and public opinion. So they need to use whatever authority they have,” said Vaughan.
Polls suggest the vast majority of Americans do not want Obama to act unilaterally, but many Republicans are hesitant for use the “power of the purse” to force Obama’s hand, fearing a another possible government shutdown over the issue which could cost the GOP the moral high ground on the issue and stain its ascension to the Senate majority.
Vaughan believes withholding funding in response to Obama’s executive action would be welcomed by most Americans.
“If they have to use their funding authority to keep the president from doing something that would be such a mistake for our country, I think the public would back the members of Congress who do that,” she said.
Last week, Obama said he was tired of waiting for Congress to act on immigration reform but suggested any reforms passed in the future would trump his unilateral action so critics had little to worry about.
“That’s not how our democracy works. The president doesn’t get to say, ‘I’m going to do this. Catch me if you can. Pass your own law to overturn it.’ That would also be unfair to the people he’s dangling this amnesty in front of and saying, ‘Okay, I’m going to give you amnesty. I’m going to make Congress take it away from you.’ That’s just political gamesmanship,” said Vaughan.
Adding fuel to Vaughan’s case is a new study CIS released Thursday morning, showing that immigrants (both legal and illegal) constituted 42 percent of new enrollees into Medicaid since 2011 at a cost of $4.6 billion. Vaughan says somewhat difficult to determine how much of that influx comes from illegal immigrants.
“We don’t know exactly. Part of the reason is because there are so many people in this kind of limbo-like status, because of presidential amnesties and and deferred action programs, who have been living here illegally. They don’t qualify for a green card but they are allowed to get a work permit and a Social Security numbers so states will enroll them in health care programs,” said Vaughan.
While the immediate fight in Washington is over illegal immigrants, Vaughan says flaws in our legal immigration policy are contributing to the surge of legal immigrants onto the Medicaid rolls.
“A lot of the immigrants that we have been accepting, and a lot of the people that we’ve been giving legal status to, are not able to be self-sufficient. The main reason for that is our country does not have a labor shortage, so wages are not going up. So they’re going to be dependent on government programs like Obamacare. That means any huge executive action or amnesty or increases in illegal immigration is going to be costly for taxpayers,” said Vaughan.