Immigration Reform- Let's Blame John

President Obama announced today that he will go on national television tomorrow night to announce changes he is making to immigration enforcement. There is a long history of presidents taking executive action regarding immigration policy. This marks the first time that Congress has tried to paint the president as an Emperor trying to impose his will above that of the Congress and the People. There are those who are attempting to paint this as a racial issue. The other presidents taking executive action were all white and President Obama is only half white. I disagree. The political world is so partisan at this point that it seems unlikely to me that if the president was white the reaction by Republicans would be any different. As far as the Speaker of the House and future Majority Leader in the Senate claiming that this action will "poison the well" or destroy any opportunity for bipartisan action on other issues. Really? After six years of fighting every issue and proposal now you are ready to act in a bipartisan manner. I think not.

So who is John and what does he have to do with immigration reform? John was here from another country in the early 1970's and his time to stay in the United States had expired. He wanted to stay but a conviction for possession of cannabis resin gave him little standing to stay. John and his wife wanted to remain here because her ex-husband had taken her daughter and disappeared somewhere in the United States. They wanted to remain to work together to find her. John's wife had made contributions to the arts in the United States and was allowed to stay. The United States government wanted John deported due to his stance against the Vietnam War and were using his cannabis conviction to bolster their case. John's attorney, Leon Wildes, argued that the documents he found showed the government had allowed deferred deportation action in 1,800 cases. He used the argument that deferred action had been used in those cases and could also be applied to John's case, This was the first time the deferred action argument had been made in court and the appeal which settled the case in 1975 allowed John to stay in the United States. It also provides the basis for the deferred actions being put into place by President Obama. He is not changing the law he is simply determining the enforcement actions that will be taken by the Department of Justice. It is similar to a policeman determine which car to stop when 10 cars speed by him. He can't enforce his limited resources against all of them and he is duty bound to enforce the law. Choices are made. You might be wondering John who? I wish there was a happier ending to this story as several years later on a street in New York City, John was shot to death. Maybe things would have ended differently if John Lennon had been deported.