President Barack Obama is vowing to act on his own due to the Congress’ inaction on immigration reform. Proponents say this could help address a wave of undocumented kids crossing the border from Mexico. But there are strict limits to the executive power.
Yes, the President can send National Guard troops to the border as some House Republicans insisted at recent congressional hearing on immigration. No the President cannot make and enact immigration law changes through the executive branch.
The President with his executive power can:
* Fine tune existing guidelines on who to prioritize and prosecute in deportation hearings.
* Dispatch more border patrol agents as well as members of the National Guard.
* Opt to continue a program for some who were brought to the United States as kids also known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. It is important to note that this program allows them to temporarily stay in the country and work or attend school. It is not a path to legalization.
* Continue a practice in some states of using ankle bracelets or weekly mandatory check-ins with immigration officials as an alternative to detention.
* Move to increase the amount of free legal assistance to immigrants in deportation hearings. However, if the transfer of resources involves moving judges to the area so they can process the caseload and more asylum officers to conduct interviews with these children then we are not really solving anything on the long term because the courts are already backlogged with some immigrants waiting years for a final hearing. Here again for a real solution Congress would have to appropriate more money so everyone can get their day in court within a reasonable time.
Of course there is a lot the President cannot do because our immigration is set by law and the executive branch does not create law. So the most important places where we need reform cannot be changed by the President such as increasing visa number availability to reduce current backlogs in family and employment based immigration. However, some have argued that spouses and children shouldn’t count toward 140,000 limit on employment-based green cards, whether the President can make that kind of change unilaterally is not clear at this point.
The influx of children at the Texas border further underline the major issues we have in with our immigration system and it is unfortunate that Congress refuses to act to bring in much needed change. We will have to see the steps the Obama administration takes to provide a level of “self-help” through the executive branch to address these problems.