{"id":7200,"date":"2014-11-23T13:40:45","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T13:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7200"},"modified":"2014-11-23T13:40:45","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T13:40:45","slug":"off-your-duff-congress-and-move-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7200","title":{"rendered":"Off your duff, Congress, and move on immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

If nothing else at all, President Obama’s decision to proceed with an executive order delaying the deportation of 5 million illegal immigrants has shamed Congress into doing something — anything!<\/em> — constructive to engage in this debate.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2014\/11\/republicans-no-immigration-response-113091.html?hp=c2_3<\/p>\n

There’s been a lot of accusatory talk from Republicans about the president defying “the will the people,” or “circumventing the Constitution,” or even acting “lawlessly.”<\/p>\n

They have no plan.<\/p>\n

The Senate did pass an immigration reform bill a year or so ago, but the House of Representatives sat on it. They dithered and dilly-dallied, stalled and stymied any move to enact some improvements in federal law that bottles up efforts by undocumented immigrants to attain legal status and work toward eventual citizenship.<\/p>\n

So now Obama has taken action.<\/p>\n

I keep looking at the order he signed and wonder: What is in it that angers the GOP so much?<\/p>\n

It prioritizes the arrest and deportation of criminals; it seeks to put more federal security on our southern border; it enables children of illegal immigrants who were born in the United States to stay with their parents; it allows illegal immigrants to, as Obama said, “come out the shadow” and work openly and, yes, pay federal personal income taxes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My main objection to the order was in its timing. I believe the president should have waited for the new Congress to take its seat. Oh well, he ignored the advice from a middle-of-the-country blogger. My feelings aren’t hurt, Mr. President.<\/p>\n

Now it falls on Congress to get off its collective duff and approve a comprehensive immigration reform bill that helps restore the nation’s role as being the Land of Opportunity for all.<\/p>\n

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Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If nothing else at all, President Obama’s decision to proceed with an executive order delaying the deportation of 5 million illegal immigrants has shamed Congress into doing something — anything! — constructive to engage in this debate. http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2014\/11\/republicans-no-immigration-response-113091.html?hp=c2_3 There’s been a lot of accusatory talk from Republicans about the president defying “the will the people,” … Continue reading Off your duff, Congress, and move on immigration<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[540,1664,2250,5043],"class_list":["post-7200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-national-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-executive-order","tag-immigration-reform","tag-us-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}