Pro vs. con
“Today is an important step toward rational and humane enforcement of immigration law. On behalf of America’s workers, we applaud the administration’s willingness to act.”
— AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
“Anytime the legislative process is circumvented, we all should have concerns, and this is no exception. Based on the information being circulated in the news about the proposed order, I have reservations and further questions.”
— Gov. Nathan Deal
Gabriel Rodriguez Valladolid and Steve Ramey have firmly planted themselves at opposite ends of the debate over the sweeping immigration overhaul President Barack Obama announced Thursday.
A native of Mexico, Valladolid supports it. He illegally entered the U.S. more than 20 years ago, got married, bought a house in Lawrenceville and started his own flooring business. He has two children who are U.S. citizens, potentially making him eligible for a reprieve from deportation under Obama’s plan.
Ramey, who lives nearby in Lilburn, adamantly opposes Obama’s plan. A co-chairman of the Gwinnett Tea Party, Ramey says anyone in the country illegally should be deported. One of his top concerns: the strain immigrants without legal status are putting on Georgia’s public schools and other taxpayer-funded resources.
Ramey’s and Valladolid’s views reflect the strong reactions emerging in Georgia, a rapidly diversifying state where the battle over illegal immigration still rages inside the state Capitol. In Washington, Democrats were celebrating the measure and Republicans were debating a response to what they term an unconstitutional abuse of power.
In summary, Obama’s plan would shield up to 5 million immigrants from deportation, revamp the government’s immigration enforcement efforts and overhaul the nation’s visa system. A controversial federal fingerprint-sharing program operating in jails in Georgia and across the nation would be replaced. And the government would expand a program offering safe harbor for immigrants who were illegally brought here as children.
But the biggest part of the plan would provide work permits and three-year deportation deferrals for people who don’t have legal status but do have children who were born here or are legal permanent residents. To be eligible, they must have lived in the U.S. for more than five years, submit to background checks and pay taxes.
More than 4 million people would be eligible nationwide. It’s unknown how many of them are in Georgia. But in 2012 there were 116,000 immigrants living in Georgia without legal status but with U.S.-born children, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that evaluates migration policies. Valladolid is among them.
“If they try to send me back to Mexico, I don’t know what I’m going to do there,” said Valladolid, who is facing deportation after a 2012 arrest on a charge of driving without a license. “I have nothing there. I have been living here for 20 years. My life is here.”
Bracing for a legal fight with congressional Republicans, the White House has consulted with the Justice and Homeland Security departments about Obama’s authority to act unilaterally in these areas. Ramey doesn’t agree Obama has that authority.
“He is defying the Constitution,” Ramey said. “He very much should wait until the new Congress comes in. That was the cry of the country — to bring new people in to change things, not for him to go ahead and become a dictator to throw this on top of us.”
In a pre-emptive strike this week, Republican state Sen. Josh McKoon of Columbus introduced legislation to ban Georgia driver’s licenses for the immigrants included in Obama’s plan — recipients of deportation deferrals.
“It is outrageous that President Obama intends to take this unprecedented action in contradiction of his own clear and unambiguous statements about the limit of his own authority to act with regard to those in the United States illegally,” McKoon said in an email Thursday.
Meanwhile, immigrant rights activists in Georgia called on Obama to offer relief to more immigrants without legal status. They are planning to demonstrate Friday outside the Atlanta City Detention Center, which has held detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“What we are pushing for and hoping for is that President Obama uses the full extension of the law,” said Adelina Nicholls, executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. “If it is not like that, we will keep pushing.”
Republicans have denounced the president’s plans but have yet to develop a coordinated response. A popular option is to attack the action through the appropriations process, with a showdown possible when funding expires for the fiscal year Dec. 11.
But the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday tamped down such expectations, saying that because the executive action likely will run through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, it eludes Congress’ power of the purse.
“This agency is entirely self-funded through the fees it collects on various immigration applications,” the committee said in a statement. “Congress does not appropriate funds for any of its operations, including the issuance of immigration status or work permits, with the exception of the ‘E-Verify’ program. Therefore, the Appropriations process cannot be used to ‘de-fund’ the agency.”
Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., has pushed for his colleagues to pass a full-year spending bill, but multiple Georgia Republicans said they expect a short-term spending bill to push the fight into the new Congress — when Republicans take over the Senate.
The appropriations process gives Congress the most leverage to fight back, as Obama could simply veto any bill passed specifically to reverse his action.
But there are other options. U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, pointed to Senate Republicans’ successful suit against Obama over recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
“We proved on the NLRB recess appointments that we can take the president of the United States to court on constitutional grounds and were upheld nine to nothing by the United States Supreme Court,” Isakson said. “So there’s plenty of precedent.”
The president’s action is likely to consume Capitol Hill for the foreseeable future. “It’s going to get ugly around here,” said retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
But Democrats scoff at the idea that relations could get any worse between Republicans and the White House.
“They are never going to act in good faith toward President Obama,” said U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat.
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