President Barack Obama announced his vision for immigration policy by issuing executive orders in his address to the nation on Nov. 20. Amid attack and criticism from the Republicans and even some Democrats, the president still decided to act unilaterally after months of gridlocks in Congress failing to pass a bipartisan immigration bill.
Critics have begun looking for ways to block the enforcement of the president’s executive action. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia seeking “to have the president and the other defendants obey the U.S. Constitution,” according to Alaska Dispatch News.
Scott Pruitt, the state attorney general in Oklahoma, plans to file a similar lawsuit, calling the president’s executive actions “ill-advised, unworkable, unlawful and brazenly political.”
Indeed, the president’s executive action is largely in favor of the Latino population. One of the objectives he mentioned during Thursday’s speech was not to deport the nearly five million illegal immigrants who live up to certain criteria such as having no criminal records and paying taxes. A large proportion of illegal immigrants in the United States are Latinos, the fastest-growing minority in the U.S.
Some moderate critics say Obama might be right on the direction of immigration reform but his action is setting a dangerous precedent. His way of dealing with illegal immigrants should also be questioned. Starting the second term, he has repeatedly stressed that there should be a path for illegal immigrants to get working permits and eventually stay in the country because most of them are families of U.S. citizens or green-card holders. But that’s fundamentally wrong.
Obama wants to fix the immigration system with compassion and the status quo. But the solution should start by first looking at whether they broke the law. If they stay in the U.S. illegally, no matter for how long and for what reason, they are still breaking the law. Treating them specially is unfair for those who have waited a long time going through the due process. Because of the 14th Amendment that grants every child born in the U.S. as a citizen, Obama’s policy is sending a message to foreigners that giving birth to a child on U.S. soil is the most convenient way to grant parents a right to stay. Yet the current law says otherwise. Obama’s action would thus encourage more immigrants to break the law and increase the insecurity of U.S. borders.
Another area that the president touched in his speech was how to keep highly skilled workers and let them contribute to the economy. This is designed to lessen the fear of low-skilled immigrants coming to the U.S. and drain the welfare system. Studies have shown that each illegal immigrant costs the country $24,000 a year but each only pays $10,000 in taxes, adding about $14,000 to the countries debt burden. Attracting highly skilled workers seems to help pay the costs because highly skilled workers pay higher taxes.
But under the current system, the yearly quota of 65,000 working visa (H1B) for highly skilled workers has not been changed for many years. High-tech business leaders have urged Congress to allow more working visas, but to no avail. Many are skilled workers who are hired have to leave the country because of not getting a working visa. That is costly to businesses. Obama proposed to extend the period for international graduates to intern or work in the country from one year to three years. But that’s not a realistic solution because these college graduates usually aim to gain green cards through the channel of working visas. Obama has no authority to increase the yearly cap of working visas unilaterally.
A unilateral action on immigration would no doubt have many mistakes. A thorough solution to fix the system cannot be attained without due process and cooperation within Congress.
