Mitt Watch: What Is Romney's Position On The Immigration Order?

June 17th, 2012

It's anyone's guess.

Today, on CBS' "Face The Nation," Mitt Romney was asked a direct yes or no question about whether or not he would repeal the new Obama administration policy on immigration. He dodged. So, he was asked again. He squirmed. So, host Bob Schieffer asked him again. And again. And again. He was asked a full five times. Not once did he give a yes or no answer.



I am sure this provided great solace to those far-right pundits and activists, already wary of Romney's slippery history, who have all but declared the new policy of prosecutorial discretion to be an act of treason.

Sleep tight, far right. You helped paint him into this corner.

There's really no way of knowing what Romney believes. I increasingly suspect, as frightening as it is, that he believes in nothing at all.

Members of his team, on the other hand, have some absolutely firm views on the matter. They just don't remotely seem to agree with one other.

Judd Legum writes:

"In an interview on Friday, Kris Kobach, an immigration advisor to the Romney campaign, told ThinkProgress that the new Obama policy was "illegal." Another Romney advisor told CNN that Romney’s position was "the same" as President Obama."

This is what we call message-failure. It's been two full days since the announcement of a major new policy initiative from the incumbent and the challenger has no clear response to the most obvious question everyone knew he would be asked. Meanwhile, his immediate advisers have failed to coalesce around a single non-contradictory position.

The bottom line? Romney is going to have to actually commit. He has to tell us all what he will do if he's elected. Will he repeal the policy outright or will he leave it in place while he formulates his own approach?

Either way, he will have to displease someone. If he can't handle that, he shouldn't be running.

Prosecutorial Discretion Is STILL Not Amnesty

June 17th, 2012
Follow up to yesterday's post

President Obama didn't issue an "executive order" on immigration. He directed the DHS to exercise existing authority under the law.The reactionary right is still going nuts. Worse, they continue to misrepresent the change in policy.

The Department of Homeland Security, under the guidance of the President, is exercising their right of prosecutorial discretion. Period. Putting aside the fact that the new approach to some 800,000 of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants within our borders is simply humane and the right thing to do, it's also the most practical approach fiscally (we addressed that yesterday HERE and HERE).

There is also no question that DHS does have the authority to do this. This is established law under Heckler v. Chaney.

The Immigration Policy Center explains the parameters available under that ruling:

"Prosecutorial discretion may be exercised at any stage of an immigration case. Specifically, prosecutorial discretion may be exercised when deciding whether to: issue a detainer; initiate removal proceedings; focus enforcement resources on particular violations or conduct; stop, question, or arrest a particular person; detain or release someone on bond, supervision, or personal recognizance; settle or dismiss a removal case; stay a final order of removal; pursue an appeal; and/or execute a removal order. Examples of the favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion in the immigration context include a grant of deferred action; a decision to terminate or administratively close removal proceedings; a stay of removal; or a decision not to issue a charging document in the first place." EMPHASES MINE

It's cut and dry. I am not alone in this assessment. Greg Sargent spoke to Utah's conservative GOP Attorney General Mark Shurtleff:

"This is clearly within the president’s power," Shurtleff said. "I was pleased when the president announced it."

Shurtleff, a Mitt Romney supporter who is a diehard conservative on many other issues, is perhaps the nation’s most prominent Republicanstaking out an alternative to the GOP’s hard line on immigration. His support for the president's policy represents a larger split within the party, between those who see Arizona as a model for the nation and those who want the party to adjust to demographic (and related political) realities with another approach.

Republicans and conservatives have argued either that Obama did this by executive order or more broadly that ignoring Congress represents dictatorial rule by fiat. But Shurtleff rejected that view, noting that this decision was not made via executive order and that the administration has the discretion to decide whom to prosecute.

"Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them — until Congress acts, we'll be left with too many people to deport," Shurtleff said. "The administration is saying, `Here's a group wecould be spending our resources going after, but why? They’re Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.'" EMPHASES MINE

The attempts by congress to deal with this very issue were sabotaged by the GOP through yet another act of filibuster abuse. For all intents and purposes, they forced the hand of enforcement authorities. Someone had to make the hard and practical decisions in the face of that failure. The administration not only did so, they did so legally.

What Would Deporting 11 Million People Cost? cont...

June 16th, 2012

Beyond the costs of a mass detention and expulsion of undocumented immigrants, what would the long term impact be? Numbers high enough to guarantee another recession or even a depression. Via the Center For American Progress:

"...legalization of undocumented immigrants and more flexible immigration channels would significantly expand the economy—by a cumulative $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product over 10 years—through increased consumer spending, higher tax receipts, and other related factors. A deportation approach, by contrast, would have the cumulative effect of draining $2.5 trillion over 10 years from the U.S. economy. That is a $4 trillion swing in GDP depending on which policy approach we adopt." EMPHASIS OURS

The right wing's dream solution to the issue would collapse us.

What Would Deporting 11 Million People Cost?

June 16th, 2012

The numbers associated with the operation alone would be staggering.

Prosecutorial Discretion Is Not Amnesty

June 16th, 2012
by F. Grey Parker

Although a certain knuckle-dragger distracted us from the actual substance of yesterday's Presidential announcement on immigration policy, the new DHS guidelines are still the real story.

What's the bottom line here? What does it mean? As the AP reports:

"The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods." EMPHASIS MINE

Reliably, the right wing went nuts. Malkin called the it a "stunt" that violates the "rule of law." Limbaugh shrieked that the administration had "broken the law." Rick Moran declared that the President was "pandering" and "acting like a king." The editors over at NRO labeled it "illegal amnesty" and accused the President of being "a little fuzzy on the subject of judicial review."

More rhetorical manipulation using the phrase "amnesty" was found HERE, HERE and HERE.

The push to smear the new guidelines as an "amnesty" is easily understood when this PEW poll on the impact of that particular phrase is taken into account. Language matters.

The problem is that it's not "amnesty." It's also neither a new fast-track to citizenship nor a scheme to suddenly expand the voter rolls with Democratic sympathizers as some on the fringe have implied.

What President Obama unveiled yesterday simply formalizes and ensures continuity for certain policies of prosecutorial discretion which immigration authorities have exercised for decades. What's more, the facts tell us that the Obama administration has been anything but soft on illegal immigration. Deportations since 2009 have been dramatically higher than under both W. terms combined (corroborations HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.)

They've also been smarter.

The principal difference between Obama's enforcement of immigration law and that of his predecessors has been the targeting of the most dangerous and criminal violators and the prioritization of their deportations first. In fact, deportations of non-citizens convicted of crimes has increased by 70% since Obama took office.

This rational strategy has, predictably, drawn attacks from the GOP. Their 'who cares' approach insists upon a refusal to differentiate between otherwise law abiding young people who have lived here most of their lives, even those who have served in our armed forces, and violent criminals. They would deport them all without consideration for the contributions the former have made or the threat the latter present. They also give no thought to how we would pay to achieve their vision of the wholesale round-up, internment and expulsion of millions upon millions of people.

It does seem as if the biggest problem the right has with the announced policy is that it's not both stupid and cruel.

Just over a year ago, David W. Leopold, President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, wrote a paper addressing the legal options available to the President and outlining precisely the parameters announced as policy yesterday:

"Deferred action is merely a temporary relief that confers no legal immigration status upon the noncitizen and therefore does not provide long‐term stability for the individual. DHS can initiate enforcement actions when the deferred action grant expires. But by temporarily choosing to delay an enforcement action against a foreign national, the agency can address humanitarian concerns which would otherwise be triggered by arrest, detention or removal. The regulations enable DHS to grant travel authorization for recipients of deferred action. DHS also has the authority to grant employment authorization for those granted deferred action. In this regard, deferred action provides a solution that temporarily suspends the enforcement of immigration laws when DHS determines that execution of enforcement is not warranted at that particular time." EMPHASIS OURS

This isn't amnesty. But it is legal, practical and humane. And that is driving the right crazy.