The "Obama Immigration Reform" of November 20, 2014

President Obama's "....long enough" (on immigration reform) seems to have come to an abrupt end on November 4, 2014 when the Republicans won the majority in both houses of Congress, and a defiant, and not necessarily humbled, lame duck President Barack Hussein Obama set his, and his party's sights on the 2016 election.

Key to that election will be maintaining their share of the women voters' votes, and regaining lost ground with Latino voters and Asian voters, while keeping their edge with African-American voters.

President Obama immediately acted to nominate an African-American woman to replace Eric Holder as his Attorney General, then tried to save a still-contested Senate seat by attempting to pass Keystone Pipeline legislation in the Senate to benefit Senator Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana who is behind in a runoff contest.

That vote in the Senate failed, and despite the swing in the political mood of the country, President Obama set about reaching for the Latino and Asian votes by issuing another of his executive orders granting protection from existing laws to millions of the foreigners living illegally in the United States.

While his unilateral action still leaves millions of other foreigners living illegally in the United States without the protection of his executive order, he hopes that finally doing something about his promise of 2008 that he would reform immigration laws will sit well enough with Latino and Asian voters to win their lost votes of 2014 back to the side of the Democrats in 2016.

On that score much will depend on how the Republicans, especially those in the new Congress in 2015, react to this latest political ploy.

Some of those foreigners who will now be better protected by President Obama's latest executive order were caught once or several times illegally entering the United States and were deported back to their native countries by the US Border Patrol and the US Immigration Service. Of the millions of those still living in the US illegally, some will be deported again, and once again show up trying to cross the border and enter the US illegally, while hoping another president will reach out for their votes by granting something like amnesty in the future.

With the southern border of the US still porous, not to mention the US coastlines and the US border with Canada, President Obama's latest executive order could do little immediately to secure the borders except to shift some existing assets around. Anything else requires funds which would have to be voted by Congress.

Republicans in Congress, especially those from the southern border states had wanted to see US borders more secure before any immigraiton reform which might effectively encourage even more illegal immigration. They didn't get that, and a bipartisan Senate bill, which was presented for approval by the House of Representatives, stagnated as a result.

What comes next in this fight over illegal immigration and comprehensive immigration reform?

More importantly, will this Chief Executive be able and willing to work with a Republican-controlled Congress to fulfill his other overdue promises from 2008 before he leaves office in January 2017.

After his latest efforts at trying to feather his own party's nest for 2016, that seems less and less likely.

After another good televised speech, did President Obama actually reform the immigration system, or just tinker with it some for political advantage?

If the federal government cannot deport the still "unprotected" illegal foreign immigrants, and cannot secure the borders, what does anyone in government visualize as "comprehensive immigration reform"?

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Copyright 2014 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.