Immigration Politics: How a Democracy Works - Editorial

This New York Times editorial lists a number of actions that President Obama could take to address a number of immigration issues, including Secure Communities, students who would be helped by the Dream Act, E-Verify and state initiatives on immigration. We second the motion. 

How a Democracy Works - NYTimes.com: "President Obama, who has spent two and a half years not delivering on his promise to fix immigration, gave a speech in El Paso last month and cloaked his failure in tough statistics — this many new border agents, that much fencing, these thousands of deportations.

As for the other parts of reform — where millions of immigrants get right with the law and get on with becoming Americans, where workers are better protected — he threw up his hands. He said immigration advocates “wish I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself. But that’s not how a democracy works.”

O.K., so maybe it isn’t. But there is a lot President Obama can and should do, using the discretion and authority granted to the executive branch and its agencies to make the system work better:"