The Country’s Immigration Quandary: Why is it so Hard?

By Gabriela Lemus, NewsTaco

Despite widespread social and bipartisan agreement that comprehensive immigration reform would be good for the country and the economy, we are stuck. Despite numerous polls mostly favoring comprehensive immigration reform, our key decision-makers have been engaged in Kabuki Theater over who will demonstrate leadership first?  Who will get the credit? Who will be blamed? It’s a game of timing and sequencing although there is little policy in evidence.

In 2013, the Congressional Budget Office released an eye-opening report: The Economic Impact of S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act that highlighted how immigration reform would increase GDP by 3.3 percent by 2023. The GDP could also increase by 5.4 percent by 2033, approximately $1.4 trillion in today’s dollar data.

Since the publication of the CBO report, a series of statements and events have left immigrant rights advocates and Latino voters in turn hopeful, concerned and frustrated. And immigrant families are bearing the brunt of the delays. The Obama administration is estimated to deport between 30,000-35,000 undocumented immigrants monthly according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data.

On June 30th, 2014, in the wake of thousands of terrified children from Central America arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Obama announced that he would be taking a unilateral decision on immigration by the end of summer – or September 21st to be precise – hinting that there were changes in the pipeline that would come before the November elections. The country and the economy would be stronger if Congress would simply pass legislative reform, but since Speaker Boehner was unable to get legislation to the floor for consideration, the President would have to do something himself.  He was less clear whether he would act via executive orders or through priority changes within the Department of Homeland Security – but he would act.

When questioned about immigration reform at a recent American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event, House Leader John Boehner stated that he believed that immigration reform would be good for the economy but believes the borders need to be secured first – this following an earlier statement in August that the House hadn’t considered immigration reform because they “don’t trust [Obama] to enforce the law as written.” Boehner later made a point of saying that Republicans could consider immigration in 2015 but the president would probably make his own decision first.

In August, the President moved away from his self-imposed end of summer deadline because it was better to ensure that his team closely examine the law and determine the extent to which it is within his legal authority to try to address the broken immigration system before the end of the year. The rationale though valid, stood in stark contrast to the very difficult political realities of the Democratic Party which face a tough mid-term election cycle.

Going back to Leader Boehner’s comments at AEI, “I think immigration reform would help our economy, but you’ve got to secure the borders first…Our borders aren’t secure. And then we’ve got the problem of those that are here without documents. It needs to be fixed. We’re a nation of immigrants. The sooner we do it, the better off the country would be.”

Sadly, if the leaders are having this much trouble deciding when to move, how and why – the November mid-term election cycle will come and go leaving in its wake a very frustrated rising American electorate wondering, what just happened here?  Chances are they will not be so complacent in 2016.

Dr. Gabriela D. Lemus is the Executive Director & President of Progressive Congress. She tweets @progcongress.

[Photo by SEIU/Flickr]

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