President Obama to set to skirt Congress, use Executive Order for immigration reform

President Obama is set to fulfill his promise to “fundamentally transform America” by using an executive order to make changes to immigration policy. Scheduled to address the nation at 8pm on Thusday, the President is believed to declare a plan giving amnesty to roughly 5 million illegal immigrants.

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Obama is also under intense pressure from Hispanics and much of his liberal base to act now, after promising to act by September, then disappointing them by waiting until after the midterms.

Immigration lawyer Margaret Wong released a statement saying that she had been invited to the White House for a holiday party Wednesday night and that Obama had told her “I had promised. I had promised.”

“He was actually very proud that he’s been able to keep his word,” Wong said. 

The plan is directed at undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years can apply for a program that protects them from deportation and allows those with no criminal record to work legally in the country.

This is estimated to be 4 million people, but there is little data to support the figure and no clear inidications how the screening process will reconcile criminal records or legal employment. Additionally, one million people will get protection from deportation through other parts of the president’s plan to by the expansion of an existing program for “Dreamers,” young immigrants who came to the United States as children.

There will no longer be a limit on the age of the people who qualify. 

Farm workers will not receive specific protection from deportation, nor will the Dreamers’ parents. And none of the five million immigrants over all who will be given new legal protections will get government subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act. They are believed to be able to apply and pay for Obamacare, just not receieve the subsidies.

The United Farm Workers announced that Obama had told union President Arturo Rodriguez that at least 250,000 unionized farm workers would be eligible for deportation relief, with at least half that eligible number based in California.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, in an opinion article Tuesday on the Politico website, assailed the president for embracing “the tactics of a monarch.”