President Barack Obama has had plenty of chances to push immigration reform, but has "either let it slide or worked behind the scenes to sabotage it," an opinion piece in Friday's
New York Post contends.
"Carly Fiorina had his number on 'Meet the Press' this past Sunday," writes William McGurn, the Post's editorial page editor. "And it tells you all you need to know about the failure of our press to hold the president to his own words that she was completely ignored."
Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who ran in 2010 as a Republican for the seat held by California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and is
considering a run for the presidency in 2016, pointed out on the show how, for all the president's "big talk," on immigration reform, he's delayed or sabotaged it for years.
"He sunk comprehensive immigration reform in 2007," Fiorina said on the show. "He did nothing to push forward immigration reform when he had the Senate, the House and the White House. He said in '11 and '12 he couldn't do anything. And then he delayed his action for the elections. Unbelievable cynicism.”
McGurn outlines incidents dating to 2007, when Obama was still a senator from Illinois, how he has blocked immigration reform.
In 2007, President George W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., were pushing for an immigration bill that was making its way through the Senate. Behind the scenes, though, Obama was supporting "labor-backed poison-pill amendments designed to sink it."
The next year, while Obama was campaigning for the presidency, he said it was time for a president who would not back down from immigration reform. However, for his first two years in office he had Democratic majorities in the House and Senate but did not move on the measure, McGurn writes.
And then earlier this year, Obama threatened the same executive order, but backed down until after the midterm elections, McGurn writes.
"Even now, his promised executive order won't give America real reform: one that provides a clear and lawful path for talented and hardworking people to come here, a guest-worker program that meets the needs of our economy, and a resolution that doesn't leave in limbo the final status of the millions here illegally," said McGurn.
"All his order does is shield them from deportation and allow some to work. Here's the shorthand: Like every other action this president has taken on immigration, this new one will, in fact, make genuine immigration reform less rather than more likely."
Meanwhile, it's hard not to see leaders on both sides of the issue coming out bad after Obama's announcement Thursday, McGurn writes.
"Far from showing himself in command, the president may end up only confirming his weakness if Republicans use the power of the purse to stymie this dubious order," he writes. "As for Republicans, it's more than possible they win this standoff — but at the risk of becoming perceived as the anti-Latino party."
But nobody is asking Obama the obvious question about his signature healthcare reform, McGurn said: "Does this president believe one word of what he's telling us?"
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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