2 GOP PRESIDENTS ACTED UNILATERALLY ON IMMIGRATION

AP ^ | 11/17/14 | Andrew Taylor

[SoFloFreeper]

Two presidents have acted unilaterally on immigration - and both were Republican. Ronald Reagan and his successor George H.W. Bush extended amnesty to family members who were not covered by the last major overhaul of immigration law in 1986.

Neither faced the political uproar widely anticipated if and when President Barack Obama uses his executive authority to protect millions of immigrants from deportation.

Reagan's and Bush's actions were conducted in the wake of a sweeping, bipartisan immigration overhaul and at a time when "amnesty" was not a dirty word. Obama is acting as the country - and Washington - are bitterly divided over a broken immigration system and what to do about 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.q

[tje]

Excuses yes.. and if you take them at their face value, that is, that Reagan and Bush did this too.. Doesn’t that prove that it doesn’t work? We’ve been down that pass, time to try something else.

[cld51860]

I may be wrong here (my memory is not what it used to be), but I believe in both instances the media was not pushing near as hard for it, and, generally, the way “amnesty” was proposed, most people were NOT opposed to it at the time.

[RckyRaCoCo]

Reagan was Grubered, dems got the amnesty(votes), the increased border enforcement was ignored.

Dems trying to repeat history, seeing if a NEW generation of Americans are equally as "gullible"(aka stupid).

[Democrat_media]

This is from the AP: The marxist AP lies.

The Constitution makes the Presidency an inherently weak office . Obama has no authority to do this executive amnesty.

[Christie at the beach]

President Reagan went through Congress, AP.

The democrats never enforced the borders to be closed.

Obama is threatening to bypass Congress to make law

and if he does, he should be impeached.

[GeronL]

Reagan had a deal with Congress, it PASSED Congress as far as I remember. Congress just lied.

Reagan thought it was a huge mistake later

[GeronL]

Somehow the author forgets the uproar when W. tried amnesty

[EDINVA]

Amnesty wasn’t a dirty word in Reagan/GHWB’s time because they thought the issue was settled. They didn’t have the hindsight advantage Obama has of seeing how utterly that failed. Nor did they anticipate another 15-30 million (depending on who’s counting) who’ve entered illegally since Reagan/GHWB thought the issue was settled.

[LucianOfSamasota]

Let’s see...

We have all these illegal, criminal aliens...

AND Moochele tells us the country is in dire nutritional straits?

But what could be more nutritious for a human than the exact proteins and nutrients which comprise a human body?

Maybe there is a solution hidden in these random facts?

Hmmmmmmm?

[Yo-Yo]

Reagan’s amnesty program was signed into law after it was passed by both houses of congress. It was not an executive order.

[Ben Mugged]

From Fact Check.

On July 13, 1951, Harry Truman approved legislation to facilitate the employment of legal migrants to harvest U.S. crops, but also expressed a desire to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico and said additional measures were needed. "These people are coming to our country in phenomenal numbers – and at an increasing rate," Truman said. "Everyone suffers from the presence of these illegal immigrants in the community."

[fhayek]

Soylent Green, with maybe just a hint of Salsa, perhaps?

[LucianOfSamasota]

Or a modest proposal?

[fatnotlazy]

The problem of illegal immigration goes back through several presidencies, Republican and Democrat. Most administrations either ignored the problem or their efforts made it worse. However, no prior action or inaction would produce the nightmare Obama will most likely subject us to. And I suspect by and large prior executive actions did not flagrantly violate the law as Obama’s likely will.

[Lazamataz]

The AP really needs to meet their judgement.

[DoughtyOne]

No president in our history has granted amnesty by Executive Order.

Through consensus, our presidents have signed legislation that addressed the illegal immigrant problem one way or another.

President Reagan signed legislation meant to grant amnesty to roughly one million illegal immigrants that had arrived over thirty years.  I was against it, but it in no may resembled a plan like the one today, that will legalize an amount easily able to be as large as 10 to 15% of our current citizen populace.  Reagan approved of a plan to legalize roughly 0.4% of the nation's populace in his day.  Lied to about the amount of illegals in our nation at that time, the amenesty of that time amounted to 1.5% of our populace.  Also included in that bill were stiff penalities meant to crack down on businesses hiring illegals.  As soon as Reagan's term in office was up, immigration enforcement in our interior ceased.  Any foreign national that could get here, had very little to fear about being sent back home.  Reagan was betrayed, right along with the rest of the nation's citizens.

President Bush, for all his blow-hard comments during his first campaign, never passed immigration reform.  His job was done, when the mere talk of an amnesty ballooned the number of illegals in the nation by at least 100% during his terms in office.  It may have increased the number of illegals by as much as 200% (or even more).

Next we had Obama, following on the heels of the McCain/Kennedy bill.  Foreign nationals were convinced it was only a matter of time before amnesty was granted, and they flooded our nation.

The revised U. S. Census for 2010, stated there were 9 million illegals in our nation.  They had accumulated over the prior decade.  In the 14 subsequent years since then, we are told only 2 million more illegals have come over the border.  That is clearly a falsehood.

Today we have between 25 and 40 million illegals in our nation.  Obama and the rest of our government by the consent of silence, are about to make them all legal.


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[Eva]

We were never dealing with eleven million people and we were not dealing with an immigration system that has been turned upside down and backwards by a president who resents the constitution for the limitations that it puts on his power as president.

Obama is determined to legalize the Central Americans because he thinks that America is rightfully theirs to begin with. ...and because he has lost the support of most of White America. It’s Helter Skelter time.

[Vendome]

YOU LIE!!!

Reagan absolutely DID NOT ACT UNILATERRALY on immigration.

He acted on a bill which properly initiated in the House, was sent the Senate for markups, passed back to the house for reconciliation and ultimately signed by Reagan.

That is not unilateral action. It was the proper, constitutional and lawful process.

[Usagi_yo]

Yes, that had strong bi-partisan support. Reagan did get bi partisan support during his administration because he negotiated compromise ... a necessity in a Constitutional Republic.

Note how Obama doesn’t compromise. He thinks it’s the tyrant’s my way or the highway.

[Buffalo Head]

Shame on these youngsters. They are apparently unaware of “Operation Wetback” when a president unilaterally acted upon illegal immigration. Look it up.