President Obama made a blockbuster announcement on immigration that got a lot of Americans divided. In his new plan, about 4.5 illegal immigrants in the US will now be able to get legal status and allowed to apply for work permits. This applies to only those who have no criminal records, have been in the US illegally for at least 5 years and are willing to pay their outstanding tax. The Republicans are angry though and call it "lawless amnesty". They believe it will encourage more people to arrive the US unlawfully.
"The action by the president yesterday will only encourage more people to come here illegally. It also punishes those who have obeyed the law and waited their turn." Republican Speaker of the House said today
But fortunately for Obama, he doesn't need the permission of congress to do this. It's called executive action - where a president can bypass the legislature, which he has done. Continue...
There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US now and President Obama believes that a mass deportation of these people “would be both impossible and contrary to our character.”
He made the controversial announcement in an address from the White House yesterday Nov 20th You can read his full speech (It's quite a long one) culled from CNN, after the cut...
My fellow Americans, tonight, I'd like to talk with you about immigration.
For more than 200 years, our tradition of welcoming immigrants from around the world has given us a tremendous advantage over other nations. It's kept us youthful, dynamic, and entrepreneurial. It has shaped our character as a people with limitless possibilities -- people not trapped by our past, but able to remake ourselves as we choose.
But today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it.
Families who enter our country the right way and play by the rules watch others flout the rules. Business owners who offer their workers good wages and benefits see the competition exploit undocumented immigrants by paying them far less. All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America. And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.
It's been this way for decades. And for decades, we haven't done much about it.
When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system. And I began by doing what I could to secure our borders. Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history. And over the past six years, illegal border crossings have been cut by more than half. Although this summer, there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is now actually lower than it's been in nearly two years. Overall, the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is at its lowest level since the 1970s. Those are the facts.
Meanwhile, I worked with Congress on a comprehensive fix, and last year, 68 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents came together to pass a bipartisan bill in the Senate. It wasn't perfect. It was a compromise, but it reflected common sense. It would have doubled the number of border patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship if they paid a fine, started paying their taxes, and went to the back of the line. And independent experts said that it would help grow our economy and shrink our deficits.
Had the House of Representatives allowed that kind of a bill a simple yes-or-no vote, it would have passed with support from both parties, and today it would be the law. But for a year and a half now, Republican leaders in the House have refused to allow that simple vote.
Now, I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law. But until that happens, there are actions I have the legal authority to take as President
