The White House may be in for another surprise in November.
On Monday, the White House said that President Barack Obama decided to enact executive amnesty for potentially millions of illegal immigrants after the midterm elections because he felt that Americans would not be as intensely opposed to it after the campaign season.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed that amnesty opponents were distorting facts during the campaign season, even though they have only been repeating reports about the scope of Obama’s potential executive amnesty that have originated from pro-amnesty groups and the White House.
For instance, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said that he and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus urged Obama to “go big” and be “broad” in his executive amnesty. Gutierrez assured pro-amnesty activists that Obama had indicated in a White House meeting that he would stop the “deportation of our people.” Numerous reports have indicated that Obama may give temporary amnesty and work permits to five million illegal immigrants.
“I don’t think any of the Republican candidates are contemplating a six-figure ad buy in the third week of November,” Earnest said. “The tone and the heightened nature of the debate will be different.”
Earnest attributed the current opposition to Obama’s executive amnesty–which has endangered Senate Democrats up for reelection in red states–to campaign ads. The White House already misgaged public sentiment on amnesty, and Earnest was not aware that Republican candidates started to campaign against amnesty only after grassroots activists had been hammering the issue for months.
In addition, Matt Drudge, who said illegal immigration was a “hot” issue long before Republican candidates started to run on it, and news outlets like Breitbart News have been relentlessly reporting on illegal immigration for months, shifting public opinion in the process with an incessant stream of facts, many of which the mainstream media refused to report and the White House tried to conceal.
It all started in June, when Breitbart Texas published leaked photos of illegal immigrant juveniles, nearly 90% of whom are teenagers, being warehoused in detention centers. The mainstream media was forced to cover the issue after that, and Obama’s approval ratings on illegal immigration plummeted. Illegal immigration rocketed to the top of the issues that concerned Americans. Recent polling has found that 73% of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, oppose Obama’s executive amnesty, while another 63% disapprove of granting work permits to illegal immigrants.
During his interview with Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd over the weekend, Obama said the flood of illegal immigrant juveniles shifted the politics of the issue and forced him to delay his executive amnesty.
But Earnest said that Obama will still enact his executive amnesty “before the end of the year.”
“That is a decision that he has made, and that is something that will occur,” Earnest said.
Obama may in fact enact his executive amnesty after the November elections, but he will do so in the face of Americans whose opposition to it will not be any less fierce or intense.
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