Washington, DC – This Monday President Obama announced that he would be acting unilaterally on immigration relief in the absence of legislative reform. In reaction, the Dream Action Coalition has the following statement:
We commend President Obama on the decision not to wait for Congress to act unilaterally: we believed reform was impossible then, and signs have continued to point towards it’s impossibility now with events like Eric Cantor’s primary loss and inflammatory rhetoric on the right.
Although relief is being promised, we are left to wonder what sort of relief it will be. «I can’t wait and do nothing while the House GOP does nothing» he said. Obama spoke of the losses to the country over the year that the House failed to act, and that he would fix as much of our system by himself as he can. What will this mean?
Obama acknowledged of the brokenhearted families and lost opportunities that our country has suffered solely because of our broken immigration system: will this lead to him addressing these complicated issues, or put a modest political Band-Aid on a situation that deserves more to remind Latinos who to vote for? Will Obama follow through despite the predictable screams from the right that he should continue to do nothing?
«Today was one good step, but the follow through will determine whether or not it is in the right direction. His rhetoric has changed from ‘I can’t stop deportations on my own’ to ‘I will take executive action’, now it is a matter of him being bold and meeting the communities’ demands, like expanding Deferred Action, or just making small fixes to try to get pressure off his back.» said Erika Andiola, Dreamer from the Dream Action Coalition.
