Before you hear tonight’s GOP spin about President Obama acting on his own without congressional authority, you should know about the administrative actions on immigration under two of the last three Republican presidents – both done as part of normal enforcement discretion, without specific congressional authorization. In 1987, the Reagan administration announced blanket deferral of deportation for children left out of the 1986 congressional amnesty bill. This affected more than 100,000 families. Subsequently, in 1989, despite continued congressional inaction, George H. W. Bush extended “family fairness” relief to include spouses and unmarried children of the 1986 amnesty class, affecting up to 1.5 million family members. That came to over 40 percent of the 3.5 million undocumented immigrants at the time. But don’t expect Republicans to refer back to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush tonight. When recalling history that runs counter to their current ideology they suffer a bad case of amnesia. -Robert Reich
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:36:34 +0000
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