President Obama’s prime-time address to the nation on immigration Thursday is the culmination of an unrelenting fight with Republicans over the limits of his executive power, a watershed moment that will define how Americans view his presidency years after he leaves office.
Long hinted at but never acted upon, Obama’s decision to finally move ahead on shielding 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation will surely embolden his base and alienate his rivals.
The more consequential development is how voters weary of his growing reliance on unilateral action, but in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, will view his actions.
Obama’s speech to millions of Americans on Thursday is the start of a broader campaign to convince the public that his actions are motivated by sound policy rather than a brazen attempt to maintain his relevance.
It’s evident that Obama, reeling from low personal approval ratings and his party’s dismal showing in the 2014 midterms, has a tough slog ahead to win this argument.
“I think it’s the height of arrogance for this president to go around the Congress,” Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Wednesday, drawing the battle lines for an immigration debate that will extend well beyond Washington.
Just as important as outlining his plan, which includes deportation deferrals and work permits for roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants, Obama is looking for approval of a governing style more combative than the one he deployed during his first six years in office.
It’s not just immigration on which Obama is pursuing aggressive executive action, but also environmental policy, a nuclear deal with Iran and various economic prescriptions.
Yet, Obama’s immigration problem is uniquely challenging because he’s flirted with taking such actions for so long. The president’s immigration blueprint was originally expected in the late summer, but he decided to wait until after the November midterms in an effort to protect endangered Democrats.
Even some allies suggested that Obama’s taking so long to act weakened his pitch to a prime-time audience.
“He can’t easily win the ‘it’s the right thing to do’ argument,” conceded an immigration-reform advocate with close ties to the White House. “If it was that simple, he would have done something a long time ago. It’s harder to say ‘now is the time’ when he dragged his feet for so long.”
At the core of his immigration dilemma is convincing the public of his plan’s legality.
Obama himself has repeatedly argued that he is “no emperor” and must work with Congress to navigate a path forward for a broken immigration system.
Such reasoning, however, disappeared when Obama concluded that it was virtually impossible to move a Senate-passed immigration bill through the GOP-controlled House.
And some analysts say Obama has a sound legal basis to take executive action on immigration, even in the face of staunch Republican opposition.
“Under the present state of the law, the president has authority to defer deportation proceedings,” argued Christopher Schroeder, a professor of law and public policy at Duke University. “The Congress has enacted an immigration statute that grants discretionary authority for immigration officials or the president to fill in the gaps, to set priorities and to write the regulations that actually make the statute operative.”
“While I agree that this can make some people very uncomfortable,” he added, “I just don’t see the argument for unconstitutionality.”
Republicans will quickly put that theory to the test.
“We should take him to court,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters Wednesday, outlining a likely GOP response to Obama’s immigration blueprint.
In part, the White House is banking that Republicans will veer too far to the right, perhaps threatening a government shutdown or alienating the Latino voters they desperately need to win over before 2016.
However, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing nearly half of all Americans opposed to Obama’s executive action on immigration, the president has his own overreach problem.
The White House claims it’s not worried about the GOP’s counterattack.
“We heard [Republican] rhetoric for some time,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “The fact is, the president is somebody who is willing to examine the law, review the law and use every element of that law to make progress for the American people, and that’s a criticism the president wears with badge of honor.”
