Immigration Reform Debate

Boehner Says Obama’s Immigration Action Damages Presidency

Article written by Ashley Parker for the NY Times, Nov. 21, 2014
Excerpts from article taken from NYTIMES.com. Read the full article on the NYTimes website.

Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that President Obama was “damaging the presidency itself” by using his executive authority to prevent the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.
Mr. Boehner said that the House would act to counter the president, but he declined to be specific.
“With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek,” Mr. Boehner told reporters. “And as I told him yesterday, he’s damaging the presidency itself.”
Mr. Obama, in his address to the nation Thursday night, all but dared congressional Republicans to act — either by passing their own immigration legislation to trump his executive action or by challenging him in a way that could be politically disastrous for the Republican brand.
Workers at a union headquarters in San Francisco watched President Obama’s televised remarks. Mr. Obama said millions of unauthorized workers could “come out of the shadows.”Obama, Daring Congress, Acts to Overhaul Immigration.
Representative Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, is an ally of Mr. King’s.Some in G.O.P. Fear That Their Hard-Liners Will Alienate Latino Voters.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the so-called “amnesty” law passed by Congress that granted legal status to three million undocumented immigrants, and then acted on his own the following year to expand it to about 100,000 more.Obama’s Immigration Action Has Precedents, but May Set a New One.
Mr. Obama’s decision to act unilaterally on immigration — allowing up to five million undocumented immigrants to remain in the country and work legally without threat of deportation — came after months of congressional gridlock, in which a broad immigration overhaul that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support died in the Republican-controlled House.

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