Tag Archives: Texas-Mexico border

Why not act on your own, Mr. President?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry reportedly posed an interesting notion to President Obama when the men met this week in Dallas to discuss the illegal immigrant/refugee border crisis on the Texas border with Mexico.

Why not take action on your own, Mr. President? Perry asked.

Interesting, yes? Obama said he responded that such executive decisiveness has produced the real threat of a lawsuit by House Speaker John Boehner, who contends Obama does too much of that kind of thing already.

No can do, governor.

Obama is pushing Congress now to act on his request for a $3.7 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the crisis that involves the flood of young immigrants coming into the United States from Central America. Congress insists the president do something about it. He has asked Congress to give him the money to do what it asks. It’s now up to Congress to, um, do what it has insisted on doing all along.

Can the president act alone? I suppose there are ways he can do a little of this and that administratively.

It’s interesting nonetheless that Gov. Perry would have made such a suggestion at a time when his Republican colleagues in Congress are considering legal action to prevent that very thing.

The ball has been kicked back to Congress. What are you going to do with it, ladies and gentlemen?