President Obama is set to unveil a comprehensive, unilateral plan for immigration reform that includes amnesty as soon as next week, according to a report Thursday.
FOX News reported that Obama’s 10-point proposal could emerge as soon as Nov. 21, and it includes multiple aspects that address “deferred action” on deportations for those who are here illegally. And according to the story, the plan could be quite expansive:
The plan calls for expanding deferred action for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — but also for the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
The latter could allow upwards of 4.5 million illegal immigrant adults with U.S.-born children to stay, according to estimates.
Another prong of Obama’s action is reported to include expanding deferred action for young people. The president created a program two years ago to apply to individuals who entered the U.S. as children prior to June 2007 and were under the age of 31 as of five years later. The expansion would alter the age criteria and move the cutoff from June 2007 to June 2010, making an estimated 300,000 additional illegal immigrants eligible.
A New York Times report confirmed news of Obama’s plan, adding that the plan will be announced at some point this year, at least.
Obama’s strategy would seem to follow through on those calling him to “go big” on immigration reform, as Republicans remained reluctant throughout the year to entertain reform efforts that didn’t place border security first. The president had vowed to act on immigration by executive action following the midterm elections.
The news comes as House Speaker John Boehner, who was chosen again by his conference Thursday to lead the chamber, told his colleagues that he warned Obama last week about acting alone on the issue.
“I told the president last week directly: ‘If you proceed with executive amnesty, not only can you forget about getting immigration reform enacted during your presidency, you can also expect it to jeopardize other issues as well,’ ” Boehner said at a closed door meeting, according to a source quoted by POLITICO. The Weekly Standard added, however, that Boehner did not specify how the GOP would respond to Obama.
