Immigration quake jolts Congress by Jack Nelson Immigration quake jolts Congress By Mike Lillis - 11/15/14 01:18 PM EST Congress returned to Washington this week to find a Capitol transformed by the GOPs midterm wave and a bicameral scramble to approve an oil pipeline that few would have predicted just days earlier. But for all the debate over Keystone politics and the election tsunami, it was the lingering promise of executive action to reduce deportations thats sparked the greatest intrigue – and most threatened to shake-up Congress in the lame duck and beyond. What I’m not going to do is just wait, a defiant President Obama said from the White House the day following the elections. The announcement has thrilled Democrats, infuriated Republicans and relaunched a debate over executive power thats already spun talk of new lawsuits against the White House, new chatter of impeaching the president and new threats of another government shutdown – issues that are sure to reverberate right through the 2016 presidential election. The complicated debate hinges on a simple question: Does Obama have the legal authority to halt deportations and grant work permits for millions of people living in the country illegally? In 2012, the Homeland Security Department (DHS) adopted a program – the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative – which provides two-year work visas to qualified illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. Multiple news outlets this week have reported that Obama is now eying what is essentially an expansion of that program to include a much broader swath of the illegal immigrant community, including parents of kids who are U.S. citizens, legal residents or DACA beneficiaries. CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY Jack Nelson | November 15, 2014 at 5:36 pm | Categories: Immigration news | URL: wp.me/p24gNt-4ws
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 23:08:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015