by Sue Weishar, Ph.D.

On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced he would take Executive Action on immigration that includes several provisions, including a policy that will provide temporary relief from deportation and work authorization for approximately 3.9 million undocumented immigrants for up to three years.  In his speech to the nation the President explained that although the U.S. Senate had passed a bi-partisan comprehensive immigration reform bill in June 2013, because the U.S. House of Representatives refused to even bring the bill up for a vote, he felt compelled to act to “help make our immigration system more fair and more just.” 

The parents of U.S. citizen children will be the main beneficiaries of this Executive Action. In a case-by-case review of their applications, parents must prove they have lived in the U.S. for five years, pass a stringent background check, come up to date on any back taxes, and pay a hefty fee to cover the costs of the program ($465/application).[1] 

Predictably, some have vociferously condemned the president’s most recent actions on immigration. On December 3 Louisiana joined 16 other states, most led by Republican governors, in filing a constitutional challenge to circumvent the new policies.  However, immigration legal scholars contend that presidents have ample legal authority, based on the Executive Branch’s prosecutorial discretion over the enforcement of federal law, and abundant historical precedent to take such actions. In fact, over the last 60 years, presidents have exercised discretion on how immigration laws are enforced a total of 39 times.

In 1987 the Reagan Administration took executive action to prevent the deportation of the undocumented children of immigrants who had qualified for legalization under the immigration reform bill he signed into law the prior year. No one spoke of impeaching President Reagan.

President George H.W. Bush signed an executive directive in 1990 to prevent the deportation of Chinese students. There was no talk of shutting down the government in retribution.

In 1998 the Clinton Administration suspended deportations of Central Americans in response to Hurricane Mitch. No one threatened to sue the president.

President Obama’s executive action on immigration is a win-win for the American people. Good employers who pay their workers fair wages will less likely be undercut by unscrupulous employers who underpay and exploit their undocumented workers. If the undocumented immigrant is not already paying taxes, she will begin to do so. And most importantly, millions of families will no longer fear being torn apart by immigration raids.

Nationwide, almost half of the undocumented population of 11.2 million people are covered by President Obama’s November 20th Executive Action and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program he announced in June 2012 for long-time undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children. In Louisiana, where many undocumented immigrants are relatively new arrivals-- having only resettled here after Hurricane Katrina to work in recovery and reconstruction-- just 38 percent of our estimated population of 55,000 undocumented immigrants are now eligible for relief from deportation and work authorization.

The call to solidarity and a disposition to gratitude are important components of the Ignatian worldview. It is undeniable that immigrant workers, many undocumented, played an essential role in rebuilding our homes and businesses after Hurricane Katrina. As a sign of solidarity and gratitude, let’s welcome this long overdue leadership on immigration.

[1] In addition to providing temporary relief from deportation (deferred action) to the parents of U.S. citizen children, the President’s Executive Action will also provide protection from deportation to the parents of children with Legal Permanent Resident status. The Obama administration will also expand eligibility for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to all undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children younger than 16 years-old before January 1, 2010. (Originally DACA was limited to those who had entered the U.S. before June 15, 2007, and were under 31 years of age on June 15, 2012.) DHS will revise removal priorities, focusing their limited resources on persons convicted of felonies or significant misdemeanors, unauthorized entrants apprehended at the border, and non-criminals who failed to abide by final orders of removal issued after January 1, 2014. See http://www.dhs.gov/immigration-action.