EDITORIAL: Obama burns bridges on immigration

AsburyPark

The sound Americans heard on Thursday evening was more than the sound of President Barack Obama announcing his plans to address the country's immigration problem. It was the crackling sound of the flames from a president burning his bridges with Congress behind him.

We understand the frustration behind Obama's use of executive orders to try to fix America's broken immigration system, and we support the changes those orders would bring. But we fear that the president's actions have ended any possibility that the Republican majority in both houses will work with the president on any major issue at all. The nation could be looking at two years of Washington gridlock — on steroids.

Our concern is not so much with Obama's legal authority in this case, given that presidents of both parties have issued similar orders in the last half century, but rather with the continued use of such orders, not only for the remainder of Obama's term but as a precedent for future presidents who could rely on them as an executive end-run around the legislative branch. America does not elect a president to rule by fiat.

While the scope of the president's executive actions is large, it is only a difference of degree, not kind, from similar executive orders issued by previous presidents to shield immigrants from deportation.

When one considers that the undocumented immigrants in this country landscape our lawns, gather our crops, take care of our children and do dozens of jobs that Americans either cannot or will not do, it is hypocritical for those who receive the benefits of their cheap labor — employers and consumers alike — to deny the hardworking, law-abiding immigrants among them a path to citizenship.

This issue has particular resonance in New Jersey, which is home to some 525,000 undocumented immigrants, according to Pew Research Center data released this week. Immigrants who live in New Jersey illegally make up 8.2 percent of the state's workforce, Pew researchers estimate. Large Hispanic enclaves of undocumented workers can be found in Lakewood, Freehold and Red Bank.

President Obama said he will protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from any deportation proceedings out of the 11.2 million estimated total. Most of those are expected to be parents with children who were born in the U.S. and, thus, are American citizens. This is a reasonable and humane response to the problem.

The president also is working to secure the border. While only Congress can actually hire Border Patrol agents, Obama can and should redeploy immigration agents spread around the country to the Southwest border.

Obama has argued that House Republicans forced his hand by refusing to pass any kind of bill that fixes the nation's broken immigration system. Last year, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., that, among other provisions, would have allowed 8 million undocumented immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship after a 13-year legalization process.

The bill also would have provided $38 billion to double the size of the Border Patrol — which already has twice as many agents than it did a decade ago — add new technology along the border and revamp the legal immigration system to allow more high-tech and lower-skilled workers to enter the country.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, however, refused to let his chamber consider the bill. He said he preferred a step-by-step approach to immigration reform that started with border security. He apparently felt it was impossible to address border security and a path to citizenship at the same time. We disagree.

In response to the president's executive orders, GOP congressional leaders immediately thundered their opposition. Soon after the president spoke, Speaker of the House John Boehner issued a statement saying that the president "... has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left." Boehner's Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, largely echoed those sentiments, bemoaning that it was Congress' job to act, not the president's.

That's laughable. Again, during his address last week, Obama urged Congress to "send him a bill." Given the state of the relationship between the administration and Republicans in Congress, we won't be holding our breath for one to arrive at the White House anytime soon.

Far too many people in this country must live in the shadows because of Washington gridlock. President Obama's actions, allowing some of those illegal immigrants to breathe easy for awhile, was needed. We support his efforts, even as we recognize that part of his motivation was political, a way to allow Democrats to shore up support with Latino voters ahead of the 2016 election. We recognize as well that as a result of last week's presidential actions, we could be in for two years of even greater acrimony and gridlock than we have witnessed in the last six.