With the issue of immigration reform apparently at a dead end in the House of Representatives activists are continuing to ramp up the pressure on President Barack Obama to try to get him to make use of his executive authority in order to put an end to deportations.
The pattern has been exactly the same for months now, with increasingly frustrated immigration activists latching onto the slightest hope provided by an approving remark by someone who might be capable of ending the legislative stalemate or a new campaign to put pressure on somebody in authority, only for the prospect of any real progress to disappear as quickly as it materialized. It is now ten months since a comprehensive immigration reform bill was passed by the Senate and it has become increasingly clear that the House of Representatives has no intention of even allowing its members to vote on the bill, let alone actually pass it.
Last week a report intimating that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, was supposedly “hell-bent” on having immigration reform passed this year was quickly debunked by his spokesman, Brendan Buck, who insisted that “nothing has changed”.
Now immigration activists are ramping up the pressure for Obama to take executive action in light of the House’s intransigence. A report from the AFL-CIO outlines a number of ways in which immigration enforcement could be eased and calls for the Obama administration to reclaim federal authority from the states over enforcement policies, reform the removal process, protect undocumented immigrants involved in workplace disputes and grant more work permits.