CHINA TOPIX

03/28/2024 07:00:25 pm

Make CT Your Homepage

Experts Say Obama’s Actions on Immigration Might Be Unstoppable

Obama

(Photo : REUTERS/Luke Sharrett ) U.S. President Barack Obama makes a statement about the Supreme Court's decision on his Administration's health care law in the East Room of the White House in Washington, June 28, 2012.

Analysts believe that nothing can stop U.S. President Barack Obama's move to address the border crisis, even if the opposition does not act on the executive's proposals.

President Obama is taking over the border crisis on his own after his administration hinted on making policy reforms that would prevent thousands of migrants, majority of them unaccompanied children, from Central America's Northern Triangle who are illegally crossing the U.S. border.

Like Us on Facebook

While lawyers are arguing the legality of Obama's several immigration-related executive decisions, majority of them agree that suing the president is not going to work.

According to Politico, lawsuits will be useless since it is almost impossible to prove any 'injury' to base a complaint. Experts said the immigration problem is different when compared to Obamacare dilemma that served as basis for a lawsuit that Republican House Speaker John Boehner filed against the president.

Hiroshi Motomura of the University of California supports this idea and explained that there is no one in the right position to file a complaint. Motomura favors a number of options the Obama administration is considering to stem the influx of migrants along the U.S. border.

Since U.S. legislators are still not considering law reforms to help on the immigration problem, the president is planning to take significant steps to overhaul the U.S. immigration system.

Some of the changes Obama is considering include reordering the list of priorities on deportation cases and expanding the 'deferred action' program. The program consists of letting immigrants who illegally crossed the border when they were still minors to apply for a two-year excuse.

However, other experts, like former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner, still consider the presidential authority to be 'fairly wide' as long as it is within the executive branch's authority.

Motomura concurs that there are still limits to Obama's power.

"He cannot give people a permanent immigration status. He cannot give people green cards. He cannot bypass the process ... He cannot give people a path to citizenship," Motomura said.

Real Time Analytics