President Barack Obama believes there may only be three months left to get sweeping amnesty legislation done.
At a Tuesday meeting at the Eisenhower Office Building with law enforcement leaders, White House officials, and Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Obama said there was a “very narrow window” to pass amnesty legislation and “the closer we get to midterm elections the harder it will be to get things done,” according to pool reports.
“We’ve got maybe a window of two to three months to get the ball rolling in the House of Representatives,” Obama said.
He also reportedly again said that “our broken immigration system makes it harder for our law enforcement agencies to do their job.” That has not stopped pro-amnesty advocates from pressuring the Obama administration to enact an administrative review of its immigration law to stop deportations and grant more forms of amnesty. They have done so even though the myth that Obama is the “deporter-in-chief” has been debunked by conservatives like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), mainstream media outlets like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, and even Janet Napolitano, Obama’s former Department of Homeland Security Secretary.
Twenty-two senators recently denounced Obama in a letter for threatening the “entire constitutional system” by essentially nullifying the nation’s immigration laws.
“Your actions demonstrate an astonishing disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the rights of American citizens and legal residents,” the senators wrote in a letter to Obama. “Our entire constitutional system is threatened when the Executive Branch suspends the law at its whim and our nation’s sovereignty is imperiled when the commander-in-chief refuses to defend the integrity of its borders.”
As Breitbart News reported Monday, a Center for Immigration Studies report found that the Obama administration released 36,007 immigrants in 2013, some of whom were convicted of crimes like homicide and sexual assault.
High-tech lobbies like Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us have indicated they would make a push for legislation in the spring to get more H1-B visas that the Congressional Budget Office determined would in part contribute to lowering the wages of American workers. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said passing an amnesty bill during the lame-duck sessions would be a fallback plan on Monday.
Meanwhile prominent Republican leaders like GOP Conference Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Rep. Mario-Diaz Balart (R-FL) have suggested an August deadline. That may have been the plan all along, as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tipped his hand last year when he said pro-amnesty advocates would make one final push on legislation after most Republicans were clear of primaries. Prominent liberal amnesty advocates like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have said that this year is the last chance to pass sweeping amnesty legislation.