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McAllen Monitor: EDITORIAL: Congress should act, not point fingers on immigration reform
Washington,
November 23, 2014
EDITORIAL: Congress should act, not point fingers on immigration reformPosted Yesterday In announcing major policy changes regarding immigration last week, President Barack Obama has delivered a major gift to the soon-to-be Republican controlled Congress. The question remains how Congress chooses to use that gift. They can use Thursday’s announcement as more fodder to complain that he’s a bad president. Or they can avoid the temptation of politics in favor of developing sound, permanent public policy. We urge both Republicans and Democrats to avoid the temptation of playing politics on this issue that has such a direct impact on the Rio Grande Valley in favor of choosing to knuckle down to the hard work of crafting public policy and be courageous enough to compromise with members of the opposing party. Avoid the temptation of accusing Obama of trampling the U.S. Constitution or accusing Republicans members of Congress of anti-Hispanic sentiment. Instead, consider the seemingly novel notion that Congress and the president should. We can endlessly debate over whether this month’s mid-term election was a Republican win or a Democratic loss. But few people of either party can debate that the American people are tired of the antics of Congress and the president — and especially tired of the endless partisan gridlock that has been the theme out of Washington for so many years now. Further rhetorical division in light of Obama’s executive action should not be condoned; Congress must understand that they have been sent there by an American electorate to solve public policy problems instead of using those problems for further partisan gain. We agree that Obama’s new immigration strategy is deeply flawed — beginning with the fact that by implementing an executive action is nothing more than a temporary band-aid for a major wound affecting our country. But we must credit Obama for finally showing enough courage to move forward on this contentious issue and at least trying to fashion a solution. Now is it up to Congress to deliberate on what Obama has done with the aim of improving upon it for the good of the country — not to assess the advantage that one political party may gain over the other. In an ongoing multi-part series of editorials that The Monitor has written exploring the issues of immigration, we have begun to identify certain themes affecting the immigration conundrum. If public policymakers begin to explore – as we continue to do – the human and legal equation of this issue, we believe what seems like an insurmountable problem becomes less so. Obama’s executive action addressed several of those themes and particularly stressed the preservation of families, which we strongly have urged. Outlined in the accompanying box are other facets of what we believe should be part of comprehensive immigration reform. We do acknowledge, however, that Obama has contributed an important starting point in this public policy challenge. But ultimately it will be the timely implementation of his executive actions, as well as permanent solutions expected from Congress to immigration reform that will solve this complex, multi-layered humanitarian and law enforcement challenge. In that spirit, we commend the efforts earlier this year of our own Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn. They fashioned bipartisan legislation that took a stab at controlling this migration by dealing with specific issue of unaccompanied minors. In the spirit of Washington, of course, the legislation went nowhere because of bipartisan cynicism. But that type of legislation is our only hope out of this public policy dilemma. We urge Congress to get over the fact that an unpopular president took an unpopular step in an unpopular debate. Accept his authority to do what he did and counter that authority with the enormous power that the legislative branch of our government possesses. Don’t go down the road of name-calling and don’t even think about the specter of impeachment proceedings. That is a highly distracting, highly dangerous, highly destructive path that American people do not want. Instead, Congress and the president should do what they were elected to do: govern. |