Nov. 23, 2014
Immigration Reform - Finally!
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Immigration reform has finally arrived! How is it that people who stole this land from another group can now think no one else is worthy of living here? I’m not naïve enough to think President Obama’s Executive action is the end of it because nothing is ever resolved with the current GOP, but President Obama sure did make a great start on bringing about much needed changes to our immigration laws.
The GOP talks a great game about family values, then proceeds to do everything they can to keep families apart. I can’t help but wonder what is taught in some of these churches they attend. Some of them will tell you that America is a Christian nation, then proceed to violate every tenet of Christianity!
In the President’s address to the nation, he detailed the action he is taking to help fix our broken immigration system by increasing accountability and ensuring everyone plays by the same rules.
Republicans agitate for a secured southern border. The President’s plan meets that while giving the undocumented an opportunity to achieve a legal status. Although they must pass a criminal background check and pay a fine, his plan will allow the undocumented to "come out of the shadows," work, and pay their fair share of taxes.
The President waited for Congress to act. He has assured Congress he will continue to work with them on a comprehensive, bipartisan bill like the one passed by the Senate over a year ago. He’s not trying to make his Executive actions permanent. The House could have avoided his action by bringing the bill already passed by the Senate to a vote
We have so many things to think about in our community just to keep our heads above water, so many of us have not paid attention to the issue of immigration reform and how it impacts our lives. Well, it does. It’s not just a Latino issue as is often portrayed on the news, but it also impacts our brothers and sisters of Caribbean and African descent.
Additionally, businesses will lose the benefit of hiring cheap labor using undocumented workers, making it easier for our community to compete for jobs that currently only accept undocumented workers who have no choice but to take the low pay that’s offered them.
All of the lawyers and legal scholars I know agree that President Obama has broad discretion to use his Executive privilege to do what Speaker John Boehner has refused to do. Action by the House could have stopped mass deportations and breaking up of families, but Boehner chose to just block President Obama from signing a comprehensive immigration reform bill into law.
For more than half a century, Presidents have used their legal authority to act on immigration. President Obama has now taken another common sense step. What he's done is fundamental to real accountability. We shouldn’t breakup families and send innocent children back across a border that only promises dangers and no quick return for them.
The President wants a permanent solution and has pledged to work with the GOP to find it. They need to do their job and pass the bipartisan Senate bill to provide a permanent fix—at which point the President can move on to fixing other problems.
The people want action on this issue. We’re sick and tired of hearing threats of suing the President for doing his job, of defunding programs, of shutting down the government and of impeaching the President. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill more than 500 days ago, and while the country waits for the House to vote, the President rightly has acted-- like Presidents before him -- to fix our immigration system by the authority invested in him.
(E. Faye Williams is President/CEO of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. 202/678-6788. www.nationalcongressbw.org.)