A couple of weeks ago, Obama unveiled a plan for tackling immigration issues, to be implemented by Executive Order. This new plan would call for more resources to be allocated to law enforcement to help curb border crossing, make it easier for high-skilled and assimilated immigrants to stay, and help the illegal immigrants that are already in the United States become naturalized or safely deported. Many are critical of Obama’s aggressive actions and many are skeptical of whether he has the legal authority to actually implement this plan.
So, that begs the question: how will Congress respond to Obama unilaterally reforming how the government deals with the immigration crisis by creating pseudo-legislation?
Defunding Obama
There has been some speculation that Congress might try to stop the implementation of Obama’s new plan by altering the budget so that there is no longer funding that Obama can use to put his plan into action. This would possibly put Congress into another budget stalemate and create yet another government shutdown. However, there was a poll conducted that indicates that if the government were to shut down again, the public would widely and conclusively blame the Republicans in Congress for the shutdown. I believe that this means that the GOP will go to great lengths to avoid a government shutdown. Even with the risk of government shutdown, the possibility of stopping the plan by defunding it seems to still be considered.
Cancel the State of the Union
Although I only found this possibility in one article, I found it fascinating! Of course, the President needs to be invited to deliver the State of the Union so it seems possible to me that a belligerent, GOP-run Congress might make this symbolic gesture. The State of the Union is a great opportunity for the President to reach out and speak to a very wide audience at once, but with the media we have now, the President can have a very wide audience any time he goes on live TV. For example, when he gave this statement about immigration, I watched it live on YouTube and the view counter said there were upwards of 20,000 people watching that live just on YouTube. While I’m sure a well-planned and publicized speech like the State of the Union would have a larger audience, I believe it is no longer strictly necessary for the President to give one speech to Congress a year to sum everything up. Let’s face it, the State of the Union was a fun tradition but it was designed to be the yearly dose of politics printed in newspapers across the country. Now that we have constant media access, not inviting the President to the State of the Union would be a merely symbolic gesture, but a possibly strong and effective symbolic gesture.
Legislating
Who would have guessed? One of the ways that our legislative body could stop Obama’s new immigration plan would be to actually act as a legislative body and legislate on it. According to the Washington Post, the immigration statute under which Obama is operating was created by Congress and allots him quite a bit of authority over the issue of immigration. Since this statute was created by Congress, it could also be dismantled by Congress. Alternatively, Congress could live up to its long-time promise and actually pass laws that change how we deal with immigration in this country. Those laws would effectively replace the plan that Obama unveiled and leave them with the power to make their own plan. However, this would require Congress actually deciding on something, agreeing on something, and passing a potentially controversial law. With the way things are going, that doesn’t seem particularly likely to me.
Nothing
Then there is always the possibility that Congress will grumble and try to take action, but ultimately concede to Obama this time, saying they’ll tackle the issue after the next election. The perpetual campaigning in the United States leaves us with a Congress that is too often contented by inaction if it comes with the promise of reelection.
