It is better to come to an agreement about immigration reform than for an executive order to be issued by President Obama, Congress has been told by Senator Marco Rubio, according to ABC News. Rubio was one of the “Gang of Eight” group in the Senate that came up with the immigration reform bill passed in June that offers a path to US citizenship for undocumented immigrants in addition to tighter border security.
A number of conservative and Republican members of Congress do not support the bill because of the providing of legal status to illegal immigrants, but Rubio says that they can either pass a bill that includes legalization and border security, or sit back and do nothing and force Obama to provide citizenship to those immigrants himself via an executive order. A similar order was issued in 2012 with the DREAM Act after Congress again failed to come to an agreement.
Rubio’s warning seems to fly in the face of Obama’s own comments that he will not deal with immigration issues via executive orders despite a record amount of deportations having been enacted under his leadership. Obama has been under pressure from immigration activists to put an end to these deportations, particularly from those who would be eligible for legal status should Congress pass the reform bill.
ABC News says that fear of Obama intervening directly could spur Republicans into passing immigration reform rather than being bypassed on the issue entirely.