The beginning of deferred action made for quite an historic day yesterday, with tens of thousands of DREAMers lining up from Chicago to El Paso to Los Angeles waiting to receive assistance on their applications. Yet in the midst of a nationwide celebration and day of victory, there remained the anti-immigrant extremists from the peanut gallery who found ways to make their stand in the schoolhouse door. Most notable was Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer, who issued a symbolic executive order prohibiting deferred-action-eligible youth from accessing state services, such as obtaining driver’s licenses–a move Latina Lista called “beyond being plain mean-spirited.” But there were many others, also, who only found negative things to say about giving young people more opportunities. Here’s a roundup:
From Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA):
[Deferred action is] a betrayal of American young people. We’re supposed to be representing the interests of the American people — not people who come here illegally from other countries.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX):
With unemployment at 8.3%, it’s unconscionable that the Obama administration’s amnesty program actually requires illegal immigrants to apply for work authorization in the U.S. This undercuts the 23 million unemployed or underemployed Americans… The president’s amnesty program is a magnet for fraud and abuse. While potentially millions of illegal immigrants will be permitted to compete with American workers for scarce jobs, there seems to be little if any mechanism in place for vetting fraudulent applications and documentation submitted by illegal immigrants.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA):
[We must stop President Obama] from implementing his unconstitutional and unlawful policy.
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC)
[The decision is] a classic Barack Obama move of choosing politics over leadership.
William Gheen, President and Spokesman of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC:
The Obama administration, the Bush administration or any Romney administration, they’re not allowed to make legislation. They’re not allowed to decide what will be the laws or not. That’s what kings and despots do.
Dan Stein, President of Federation for Immigration Reform:
Here it is about six months before the election and all of a sudden [the president’s] claiming this brand-new unconstitutional authority to create a whole new immigration category and then run ads on Spanish language TV trying to take credit for it.
I would do what most countries do, which is if you give people an amnesty, you have six months to get your affairs in order and please understand that you will get your education back in your home country where you’re a citizen and you can bloom where you’re planted.
Neil Munro, Daily Caller:
Administration officials confirmed on Tuesday that they have expanded the White House immigration policy for younger illegals to include low-skill immigrants who have not completed middle school or high school.
The shift adds roughly 350,000 low-skill immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security policy, which was initially portrayed as including only 800,000 people under the age of 31 when it was announced by President Barack Obama in a Rose Garden statement on June 15.
The inclusion of middle school dropouts clashes with Obama’s portrayal of the illegal immigrants as skilled workers, scientists and entrepreneurs.
