Speech #1130115454

Mr. Speaker. my press secretary has kept me pretty busy the last few days. talking about the Presidents decision to delay executive action on immigration. in two languages. I made it clear that from a political standpoint. in the short run and the long run. I think the President should have taken action before election day in order to be more transparent with the American people about the policy we all know is coming. It makes the job harder for me to generate enthusiasm among Americans to vote at all. let alone enthusiasm for voting for Democrats when there are members of my own party asking the President to hold his pen and his phone in abeyance until after the voters vote. From a policy standpoint. every week we delay is bad for our country. From a humanitarian perspective. deporting the parents of U.S. citizens is not in our national interest. Making it impossible for spouses of legal immigrants and citizens of the United States to pick up the visas that have already been issued to them is not in our national interest. Keeping the fear of deportation hovering over immigrant communities. like Pilsen and Little Village in my district in Chicago. has a damaging impact on the fabric of our community. It dampens the economy along commercial thoroughfares. like 26th Street. a key engine of the Chicago economy and tax base. Perhaps more important to those living outside of immigrant communities is to know that when the President acts. he will announce a tough but fair solution for millions of immigrants who do not have visas or any way of getting visas. but who have lived and worked here peacefully for years. even decades. It would work something like this: if they come forward. if they submit their fingerprints at their own expense to the FBI. and if they pass a rigorous criminal background check and meet other requirements. we will issue them a biometric identification card that says that they are not a priority for deportation. Not only do we get them in the system and on the books. but now they are in a program that needs to be renewed periodically with strict rules. This creates a huge incentive not to violate the rules of the program or the rules of our society. I know the President has heard all of these arguments. and I dont think I will convince him to change his mind again and move forward with key improvements to our deportation policies before November 4. but let us be clear. I think he has already made two important decisions. Number one. there is no longer any question that the President of the United States has the legal authority to act on immigration and deportations under current law. Even Republicans who have hired the best lawyers at taxpayers expense to prepare their lawsuits against the President agreed and didnt include immigration in their farfetched list of Presidential "overreaches." This is settled law. and despite the shouts of talk radio and a few on the Republican side. there is no real serious debate about the rocksolid legal ground from which the President can act and has already acted. Secondly. I know the President has decided going big. going broad. going generous. and going quickly after the election is the right decision because he and Secretary Jeh Johnson have to set enforcement priorities about which people they will deport first and which people they will deport last based on national security and economic interests of this country. He will act up to the limits of current law. and believe me. I can hear the cries from the other side. "He cant act because we. Republicans. may try to do something on immigration in the lameduck. The President cant act because we. Republicans. are going to put the bipartisan coalition back together again in the new 114th Congress. and we will get reform passed in both Houses. or. you know. we were just kidding when we said all that stuff about immigration after our defeat on election day in 2012." They will say. "This time. we really mean it because 2016 and the electoral college are staring us in the face"-but no. I know the President and the Democrats will not fall for that again. I dont see the President saying he will act if you dont act. as we have been saying for 2 years. This time. I see the President acting first. acting broadly. and acting generously. laying out a broad array of executive actions to mitigate the damage that is being done to our country by congressional inaction on immigration reform. If the Republicans are so inclined. they can take legislative action. It is what we have been begging them to do for two decades on this issue.