Hope for Executive Action on Immigration Reform Dashed Again

Miami, FL (Law Firm Newswire) September 30, 2014 – The possibility for executive action prior to the Congressional election is dead.

“Even though the President had indicated he would use his executive powers to put amnesty into place for illegal aliens, he has now, once again, backed away from that course of action,” indicated Miami immigration attorney Larry Rifkin, managing partner at Rifkin & Fox-Isicoff. “Obama is now viewed as the cause behind immigration reform delay.”

On June 30, the president told the press that he would use a set of executive actions to move immigration reform forward before the end of the summer. His deadline came and went, but no action was taken. It is vitally important that any action is legally correct and carefully detailed, but there was still certainly enough time for the president to explain changing his mind — again.

Political observers opine that President Obama is now demonstrating a familiar pattern: making highfalutin promises and then backing away from them, creating an even more complicated, tangled political morass than the original situation held.

Despite the evident retraction of the summer timetable, the administration is now suggesting that “by the end of the summer” may even have referred to the end of 2014. “A stretch of the imagination to be sure,” added Rifkin. “And on reflection, the upcoming election is not a surprise. The president could have made a move much earlier. Now it is too late.”

Over the past year, House Republicans have demonstrated a dismal failure to act on immigration reform. In fact, nothing delayed Congress during 2013 or 2014 but dissonance over end goals and implementation strategies. Rather than cooperate and work as a team, Congressional Republicans set out to co-opt the process of immigration reform and stall it.

Now, instead of focusing on timely issues and dealing with them, Congress has chosen to focus on keeping their jobs in the election.

After Obama’s latest change of mind (though not necessarily change of heart), immigrants once again face the disappointment of an apparently broken promise. For every act and refusal to act, there are consequences.