Obama, Reagan, the Bible and Immigration

Obama, Reagan, the Bible and Immigration

The Gist

President Obama’s recent executive order (allowed under ArticleII, Section 1 of the Constitution, it does not require Congressional approval to take effect) shields about 4 million people from deportation. In the past, executive orders have been used to desegregate the armed forces, bar racial discrimination in federal housing and hiring, and President Reagan used one to prohibit  the use of federal funds for advocating abortion. This particular executive order DOES NOT give recipients a pathway to citizenship, health insurance under Obamacare, or guarantee they can stay here permanently. The order WILL allow parents of U.S. citizens (giving a little credence to the notion of the “anchor baby”), who have lived in the US for at least five years, a reprieve from deportation for at least three years and allow them to work. It DOES NOT, like many on both sides hoped, streamline the legal immigration process, provide tools for immigrants already here to become more assimilated, or resolve the issue of the other 6 million or so undocumented immigrants. Under President Bush, the Congressional Budget Office stated that, “...over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that…tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use.” The very right leaning CATO Institute, commenting on illegal immigration, noted that several studies have shown immigration has a “positive impact...on native-born wages.” One group whose wages are adversely affected by illegal immigration are American citizens without high school degrees (in 2013 the nationwide high school graduation rate was 75%). The last major immigration reform took place in 1986 when President Reagan signed a sweeping immigration bill, giving many amnesty (during his 1984 presidential campaign he stated, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”). Interestingly, and provocatively, the President quoted the Book of Exodus when speaking of the undocumented among us, “we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger.”…and now you know the gist.