WASHINGTON
— President Obama will ignore angry
protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of
the nation’s immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five
million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many
of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have
direct knowledge of the plan.
Asserting his
authority as president to enforce the nation’s laws with discretion, Mr. Obama
intends to order changes that will significantly refocus the activities of the
government’s 12,000 immigration agents. One key piece of the order, officials
said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal
residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being
discovered, separated from their families and sent away.
That part of Mr.
Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been
living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an
analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research
organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter
policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country
for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people.
Extending
protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as
children, and to their parents, could affect an additional one million or more
if they are included in the final plan that the president announces.
Mr. Obama’s
actions will also expand opportunities for immigrants who have high-tech
skills, shift extra security resources to the nation’s southern border, revamp
a controversial immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities, and
provide clearer guidance to the agencies that enforce immigration laws about
who should be a low priority for deportation, especially those with strong
family ties and no serious criminal history.
A new
enforcement memorandum, which will direct the actions of Border Patrol agents
and judges at the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and
other federal law enforcement and judicial agencies, will make clear that
deportations should still proceed for convicted criminals, foreigners who pose
national security risks and recent border crossers, officials said.
White
House officials declined to comment publicly before a formal announcement by
Mr. Obama, who will return from an eight-day trip to Asia on Sunday.
Administration officials said details about the package of executive actions
were still being finished and could change. An announcement could be pushed off
until next month but will not be delayed into next year, officials said.
“Before the end
of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I
believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system,” Mr. Obama said
during a news conference a day after last week’s midterm elections. “What I’m
not going to do is just wait.”
The decision to
move forward sets in motion a political confrontation between Mr. Obama and his
Republican adversaries that is likely to affect budget negotiations and debate
about Loretta E. Lynch, the president’s nominee to be attorney general, during
the lame-duck session of Congress that began this week. It is certain to
further enrage Republicans as they take control of both chambers of Congress
early next year.
A group of
Republicans — led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Mike Lee of Utah and
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama — is already planning to thwart any executive
action by the president on immigration. The senators are hoping to rally their
fellow Republicans to oppose efforts to pass a budget next month unless it
explicitly prohibits the president from enacting what they call “executive
amnesty” for people in the country illegally.
“Our office
stands ready to use any procedural means available to make sure the president
can’t enact his illegal executive amnesty,” said Catherine Frazier, a
spokeswoman for Mr. Cruz.
But the
president and his top aides have concluded that acting unilaterally is in the
interest of the country and the only way to increase political pressure on
Republicans to eventually support a legislative overhaul that could put
millions of illegal immigrants on a path to legal status and perhaps
citizenship. Mr. Obama has told lawmakers privately and publicly that he will
reverse his executive orders if they pass a comprehensive bill that he agrees
to sign.
White House
officials reject as overblown the dire warnings from some in Congress who
predict that such a sweeping use of presidential power will undermine any
possibility for cooperation in Washington with the newly empowered Republican
majority.
“I think it
will create a backlash in the country that could actually set the cause back
and inflame our politics in a way that I don’t think will be conducive to
solving the problem,” said Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who
caucuses with the Democrats and supports an immigration overhaul.
The question of
when the president should make the announcement is still being discussed inside
the West Wing, officials said. Announcing the actions quickly could give Mr.
Cruz and others a specific target to attack, but it would also allow
immigration advocates to defend it. Waiting until later in December could allow
the budget to be approved before setting off a fight over immigration.
Although a
Republican president could reverse Mr. Obama’s overhaul of the system after he
leaves office in January 2017, the president’s action at least for now will
remove the threat of deportation for millions of people in Latino and other
immigrant communities. Immigration agents are to instead focus on gang members,
narcotics traffickers and potential terrorists.
Officials said
one of the primary considerations for the president has been to take actions
that can withstand the legal challenges that they expect will come quickly from
Republicans. A senior administration official said lawyers had been working for
months to make sure the president’s proposal would be “legally unassailable”
when he presented it.
Most of the
major elements of the president’s plan are based on longstanding legal precedents
that give the executive branch the right to exercise “prosecutorial discretion”
in how it enforces the laws. That was the basis of a 2012 decision to protect
from deportation the so-called Dreamers, who came to the United States as young
children. The new announcement will be based on a similar legal theory,
officials said.
The White House
expects a chorus of outside legal experts to back it up once Mr. Obama makes
the plan official. In several “listening sessions” at the White House over the
last year, immigration activists came armed with legal briefs, and White House
officials believe those arguments will quickly form the basis of the public
defense of his actions.
Many
pro-immigration groups and advocates — as well as the Hispanic voters who could
be crucial for Democrats’ hopes of winning the White House in 2016 — are
expecting bold action, having grown increasingly frustrated after watching a
sweeping bipartisan immigration bill fall prey to a gridlocked Congress last
year.
“This is
his last chance to make good on his promise to fix the system,” said Kevin
Appleby, the director of migration policy at the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops. “If he delays again, the immigration activists would — just
politically speaking — jump the White House fence.”
Some groups,
like the United We Dream network, the largest organization of young
undocumented immigrants, are preparing to deploy teams to early 2016 states
like Iowa and New Hampshire to hold presidential candidates accountable and
press for more action.
“From our
perspective, the president has the power, the precedent and the priority for
action on his side,” said Clarissa Martínez-De-Castro, deputy vice president of
NCLR, also known as the National Council of La Raza. The opportunity “to go big
and bold is what will allow the country to derive the biggest benefit on both
the economic side and the national security side.”
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