President's immigration order is both just and overdue

photo Demonstrators listen as Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. speaks in front of the White House in Washington on Nov. 19, 2014, to urge President Barack Obama to move forward on executive action on immigration.

There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and soon nearly 5 million will be protected from deportation under executive actions planned by President Barack Obama. The U.S. has neither the resources nor the will to deport them all. Nor should we.

America has always been the land of opportunity for all of us immigrants and children of immigrants. After all, unless we are among the 5.2 million, or 2 percent, of the nation's American Indian or Native Alaskan population, we all owe our citizenship here to immigrants from one or another country -- England, Spain, Germany, Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Russia, and countless others. And most of our grandparents or great-grandparents didn't have to have a green card or be nationalized.

What the president's executive action does is protect the parents of citizens and legal permanent residents, and a larger portion of the young people called Dreamers, who came here when they were children. It does not do what only Congress can -- create legal pathways to citizenship. The Senate, last year, passed a bill to do just that.

The House of Representatives, however, has just sucked its thumb.

Despite false Republican rhetoric that derisively calls the executive order "unconstitutional" or more "lawlessness" by "Emperor Obama," the president is simply following a long line of his predecessors who relied on their executive branch authority to address immigration challenges.

Since Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1952, each of the 11 subsequent presidents, beginning with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, have used their broad executive authority on 39 different occasions over the past 60 years to address immigration issues, according Philip Wolgin of the Center for American Progress.

"These executive actions have filled gaps in legislation by permitting certain individuals to temporarily enter or remain in the United States when it serves the nation's interests," writes Wolgin. "They have protected people from specific countries -- such as Hungarians and Cubans fleeing communism, Iranians fleeing revolution, Chinese nationals after the Tiananmen Square massacre, as well as Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans after a hurricane. These executive actions have also addressed individuals who share attributes or possess common equities such as spouses and children of immigrants who received legal status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and, more recently, DREAMers through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program."

Two of the last three Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, used executive orders in extending amnesty to family members who were not covered by the last major overhaul of immigration law in 1986.

No senators or representatives then threatened to shut down the government. No one warned that such action by Reagan or Bush would "poison the well" and damage governing leaders' ability to work together. No one then was so ignorant of history -- especially political history -- that they suggested as did Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee that, "President Obama's decision to act unilaterally on immigration shows a blatant disregard for the constitutional checks and balances upon which our government was

founded and sets a troubling precedent ..."

With Thursday's action, President Obama fulfilled a portion of the promise of the Senate's 2013 immigration reform vote, which does all that his executive action will and more. Specifically the Senate's bipartisan-approved bill would provide about 5 million people with not just a delay of deportation, but also a path to become legal citizens.

And no, we did not say legal, tax-paying citizens. These immigrants already pay taxes -- unless, of course, their U.S. employers are breaking the law by not withholding Social Security and payroll taxes from their checks. Now that would be lawlessness.

Perhaps this executive action will free up federal law enforcement officers to go after those lawbreakers.

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