Democrats tell Obama: drop immigration reform to save Senate

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/05/obama-pressure-democrats-abandon-immigration-reform

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President Barack Obama is facing sustained pressure from within his party to altogether abandon – not just postpone – the decisive executive action he has promised on immigration.

Top party officials involved in the Democratic push to retain control of the Senate in the midterm elections have explicitly warned the White House that Democrats risk losing several key states if he proceeds with an immigration reform plan being developed within his administration.

Three senior Democrats involved in the party’s election strategy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the president was being urged to publicly drop the plan to take unilateral action.

Merely putting off the decision, they argue, would keep the issue alive and could damage the party at the polls.

Obama has repeatedly warned he will use his executive authority over immigration in the face of intransigence in Congress, where a Senate-backed plan for comprehensive immigration reform was blocked by Republican opposition in the House.

In June, Obama pledged to use his presidential authority in order to begin reforming the immigration system “before the end of the summer”. The White House has in recent days become more vague on the timing of any action.

On Friday, Obama said he would be reviewing various administration recommendations for action on immigration on his return flight from the Nato meeting in Wales and that he intends to make an announcement soon.

The president made clear he still wanted to proceed both with short-term measures on the border and broader citizenship reforms but gave no indication whether these would be announced together, or when they would be announced.

“We are reviewing what the next steps are,” he told reporters at a press conference. “What I am unequivocal about is that we need immigration reform, that my overriding preference is to see Congress act ... but in the absence of Congressional action I intend to take action so that we are putting more resources on the border, [so] that we are upgrading how we process these cases and that we find a way to encourage legal immigration and give people some path so they can start paying taxes, learn English, pay a fine and not look over their shoulder and be legal since they have been living here quite some time.”

White House officials have for months been working on a possible executive order, which is widely expected to slow or halt certain deportations. It would effectively expand a 2012 decision to suspend deportations and grant work permits to some undocumented migrants brought to the US illegally as children.

Behind the scenes, Democrats have launched an intense lobbying campaign to convince the White House of the electoral damage the party could suffer, particularly in four key competitive states: Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina and Arkansas.

If Democrats lose three of the four states, which are currently on a knife-edge, they could lose control of the Senate.

The Guardian has learned that one compromise being mulled in the White House would involve implementing executive action in phases.

Under the proposal, Obama would announce a package of measures to deal with the border crisis, in which a surge of tens of thousands of Central American children has overwhelmed border authorities, enabling him to stick to his commitment of taking action by the end of the summer.

However the likely more contentious decision to suspend deportation of certain groups of undocumented migrants would be shelved until after the election.

But even that two-step approach is facing opposition from some operatives involved in the party’s Senate elections strategy who fear such a move – keeping the prospect of executive action alive – will backfire and reignite the immigration debate.

One party insider involved in Democratic election strategy described the move as “a self-inflicted wound that could lose us the Senate”.

Another Democratic official said it would be a “lose, lose”, jeopardising the party’s control of the Senate and, as a result, damaging Obama’s chances of securing the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that can only be achieved with congressional support.

“We think he will be sufficiently smart not to do anything,” the second official said.

However Obama’s aides have been searching for action he can take independently of Congress, having concluded the prospects of bipartisan action before the end of his presidency in 2016 are slim.

On Wednesday White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama had yet to receive a promised report from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security on his options – a precursor to his making a final decision.

“The secretary of homeland security and the attorney general are in the midst of a review to determine what sort of action the president himself can take unilaterally to address these challenges,” he said.

“In terms of the timing, we’ll have to wait and see what the timing ultimately ends up being here. But the president’s determination to act and his commitment to acting has not changed in any way.”

The broad coalition of church groups, business leaders and unions that convinced the Senate to pass its immigration bill last year has since splintered, with a core group, composed mostly of immigration rights and Hispanic groups, working hardest to persuade the White House to pursue an executive order as the next best option.

However they are being opposed by an increasingly vocal faction of Democrats who face an uphill battle to keep control of the Senate.

Polling in competitive states slightly favours Republicans, who need to win a net of six seats to secure a majority.

Although Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina and Arkansas are the states where Democrats believe they have most to lose from a controversy over immigration reform so close to election day, strategists have been wary of the broader damage that could be inflicted on the party.

In New Hampshire, for example, Republican Scott Brown has gained ground on Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, after making immigration – in particular the crisis situation in Texas – a key campaign issue.

Kyle Kondik, an election forecaster at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Democrats may be exaggerating the potential damage from a presidential action on immigration, after having been spooked by the alarming surge of unaccompanied children arriving at the border earlier in the summer.

He was sceptical a presidential order on immigration would have a decisive influence on the midterms either way, but nonetheless said he expected the president to ultimately shelve the plan. “Obama has clearly got a lot of people saying the time to roll out something as large as this is after the election, not before,” Kondik said.

Most of the lobbying has taken place behind closed doors but it is now breaking into the open. In recent days, Democrats running in crucial Senate races, including Alaska, North Carolina, Kentucky, Minnesota and New Hampshire, have all released statements publicly opposing the use of presidential authority to enact immigration reform.

That has led to a clash with factions within the party urging the president to push ahead. “I think I know what’s in the president’s heart, so I say to the Democrats: stand aside,” Luis Gutiérrez, a Chicago congressman and leading proponent of immigration reform in the House of Representatives, said earlier this week.

“Let the president make the decision, let him announce it and stop stopping the progress of our community toward justice. Just step aside.”

Yet if anything, opposition from the Democrats working to hold the Senate appears to be intensifying.

Another Democratic operative, closely involved in one of the Senate’s most competitive races, told the Guardian the White House should revert to its initial strategy of seeking a long-term, permanent solution to the immigration crisis through bipartisan compromise and drop the executive order idea.

Asked if the campaign had tested how voters in the state would react to a presidential decree on immigration, the operative replied: “I don’t need polling on this. I know it would be bad.”