With hopes fading of passing an immigration reform bill, President Obama is reportedly contemplating bypassing Congress and making sweeping changes to immigration policy before the midterm elections.
Many analysts think the executive action under consideration and its political fallout could, as Ronald Brownstein put it in The National Journal, “define both the Democratic and Republican parties for the burgeoning Hispanic population.”
But what isn’t clear is why Mr. Obama would engage in such a move before the election. Of course, Mr. Obama faces short-term pressures to address the surge in migrant children being detained at the border, but news media reports suggest that the policy changes under consideration would be far broader, potentially providing legal status to many of the nation’s undocumented immigrants.
Such a broad executive action could provoke a backlash in the midterm elections that might be avoided with a move just a few months later.