Obama's coming "amnesty first" immigration policy

The sorry and dangerous state of the immigration debate is framed by two recent events:

* President Barack Obama's decision to delay taking executive action until after the election.

* A letter from Arizona Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain pleading with the Obama administration not to back off an enforcement program in the Yuma area that has produced a reasonably secure border.

Obama had said that he would take action by the end of the summer. And he gave every indication that he would go bold, as amnesty advocates had urged him to do.

Administration leaks indicated that Obama would at least give work permits to four or five million illegal immigrants who came to this country as adults. The administration had already, by administrative fiat, established a program for those brought here illegally as children to receive renewable two-year work permits.

In recent weeks, Obama hinted he might go even further, saying he was looking for ways to make the legal residency of those granted amnesty by his executive order permanent.

Although I support amnesty, I think such administrative action will spark a political explosion. And not just among the populist right, which will kick against amnesty however and whenever it is granted. I fear a president claiming a magical wand he can wave to create millions of new legal residents will awaken a dormant nativist sentiment within the body politic that will reverberate for years.

The political pressure that forced Obama to back off, at least in terms of timing, wasn't that apocalyptic. Instead, it came from endangered Democratic members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, fearing not for the country, but for themselves. If Obama acted before the election, they thought they'd lose. So, Obama backed off, saying he'd wait until after the election.

The political cynicism was widely noted. Less noted was how this undermines Obama's rationale for taking executive action to begin with.

According to Obama, the American people want to see the kind of immigration reform he proposes. And if Congress isn't going to act, the American people expect him to act on his own.

But if you are doing what the American people want, you don't have to wait until after an election to do it.

Regardless, the founders didn't devise a system of government in which the president, exercising his inner-Rousseau, divines the will of the American people and implements it unilaterally if members of Congress inconveniently see it differently. Instead, the founders devised a government based upon a separation of powers, in which the legislative branch determines the law and the executive branch enforces it.

To enforce the immigration laws, a program was established in the Yuma area, called Operation Streamline, in which all apprehended illegal border crossers were to do some jail time. Since its implementation, the Yuma border has gone from being among the nation's most porous to being one of its most secure.

The Yuma sheriff, however, had been told the feds were going to abandon the no-tolerance approach and return to a deport-and-release default. He ratted to Flake and McCain, who sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder which, more politely, basically says: You've got to be kidding. Why abandon an approach that has worked?

Enforcing our immigration laws will sometimes break up families with an illegal member. I favor amnesty so that doesn't happen. If coupled with the mandatory use of electronic verification of work eligibility, I think it can be the last amnesty that's needed.

But in the meantime, our immigration laws exist. They should be enforced as effectively as possible. Operation Streamline should be expanded to other sections of the border, not abandoned in Yuma.

Until recently, there were three immigration factions in play: enforcement only; enforcement first and then see about legalization; and comprehensive immigration reform, doing increased enforcement and legalization simultaneously.

There is now a fourth faction: amnesty first. Obama appears willing to be its vehicle.

Amnesty for millions of people who consciously broke American immigration law as adults to come here and committed serial document fraud to stay is an act of grace, not a civil right. Granting it through administrative fiat will cause a political explosion, irrespective of whether it occurs before or after the election.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RJRobb.

(column for 9.12.14)