WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration stand out from those of his predecessors because of the sheer scope of what he’s doing and the political tenor of the times.
Immigration was a far less contentious issue when President Ronald Reagan acted with Congress and on his own to grant legal status – yes, amnesty – to some 3 million immigrants who had been living in the U.S. illegally. Another Republican president, George H.W. Bush, built substantially on what Reagan had done, also with little fuss across the land.
In contrast, the legal protection that Obama is extending to as many as 5 million immigrants by executive action reaches far more people and comes without the bipartisan consensus – if not the bipartisan yawn – that characterized some of the past actions of presidents. Obama’s steps are not merely “the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century,” as the president described them in his prime-time immigration remarks this week.
In the current, roiling debate, Obama is sidestepping a prominent past critic of executive action on immigration fixes – himself. And Republican leaders in Congress, who have taken to calling Obama a self-styled emperor, may not be giving due regard to what presidents from their own ranks have done on their own about illegal immigration. House Speaker John Boehner went so far as to say Obama “cemented his legacy of lawlessness.”
THE REAGAN AMNESTY