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For the last three decades, U.S. policymakers have grappled with the problem of illegal immigration, whereby immigrants from all parts of the world (not just Mexico) come to the United States and live and work without securing legal documents that allow them to do so. In 1986, the United States thought it could solve the problem with an amnesty package, but the number of illegal immigrants has increased since that time and it is estimated today that there are 11-12 million illegal (also called “undocumented” by immigration groups and their allies) immigrants in the U.S. today. In fact, studies have shown that since the 1990s, illegal immigration in the United States has largely outpaced legal immigration. Deporting all of these people would be taxing for the federal government and be a public relations nightmare. As a result, the federal government is caught in a tough position of how to deal with these 11-12 million people while ensuring that future waves of unlawful immigration do not happen again. In 2012, President Barack Obama promised action on immigration reform to address this issue and although the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill last June, the Republican dominated House has yet to do the same and has refused to take up the Senate bill. Due to the growing Latino population in the United States (although again, I would caution extempers that illegal immigration is not exclusively a Latino issue), immigration reform is likely to be a hot button political and social issue for quite some time and extempers need to have a firm grasp on the legislative history and possibilities of reform to answer questions about this subject.
This topic brief will provide a history of immigration reform in the United States, discuss various proposals for immigration reform at the present time, and then analyze the possibilities of an immigration reform package being secured before the 2014 midterms or before the 2016 presidential election. This brief will center more on Latino illegal immigration due to the large amount of news coverage about the issue.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
The History of Immigration Reform
It might surprise extempers to know this, but the United States did not have an immigration policy until 1882. This was the Immigration Act of 1882, which said that immigration policy was a job reserved for the federal government and it barred future immigrants who had criminal records and were mentally ill. At the time, rising hostility to new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, which were often poorer, did not speak English, and were Roman Catholic instead of Protestant, fueled anti-immigrant sentiments. There were also concerns in Congress at the time that “undesirable” immigrants would harm local, state, and federal budgets by draining public services. The “undesirable” list of the legislation would eventually be expanded to include polygamists, those with contagious diseases like tuberculosis or cholera, epileptics, “professional beggars” (e.g. those immigrants without a work history), and anarchists (this became an issue after a self-professed anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York in 1901).
One of the first actions that the federal government took regarding immigration policy outside of the Immigration Act of 1882 centered on America’s Chinese population. Fleeing political unrest in China, Chinese immigration increased by the mid-nineteenth century and Chinese immigrants participated in the California Gold Rush of 1849 and helped build the western portions of the Transcontinental Railroad. In fact, without Chinese workers that had experienced in blowing through mountain passes it is very likely that the Transcontinental Railroad would have been a more expensive project and may not have been completed at all. Nevertheless, Americans moving to the West Coast saw Chinese immigrants as a hostile presence since they had a different cultural background and posed a threat to American whites in the job market. Congress satisfied the demands of these West Coast nativists by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in May 1882, which barred non-skilled Chinese immigration to the United States. This law would remain on the books until 1943 when China was an American ally in the Pacific during the Second World War. However, Chinese continued to come into the United States despite the legislation and actually came through Mexico and Canada, thereby becoming the first illegal immigrants in American history! Extempers interested in reading about the legality of Chinese exclusion are encouraged to read historian Lucy E. Salyer’s book Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law.
The federal bureaucracy tasked with enforcing immigration policy grew at the end of the nineteenth century and American immigration policy became more restrictive in the early twentieth century. In 1891, Congress created the Office of Immigration and placed it within the Treasury Department. In 1906, this Office was renamed the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and moved to the Commerce Department. The new Bureau was responsible for admitting new immigrants and naturalizing them as citizens. The Bureau’s decisions were also not subject to judicial review, meaning that the federal courts could not question the Bureau on who it chose to admit and not admit into the United States. In 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 that barred most Asian and Pacific Islanders from immigrating to the United States (applying the same restrictions on them that the Chinese faced decades earlier) and demanded that new immigrants be literate. In 1921, Congress passed the Quota Act that limited the number of immigrants admitted from specific countries at 3% based on the number of immigrants living in the United States from those countries. For example, if there were 100,000 immigrants from Spain in the United States, then future Spanish immigration would be capped at 3,000 per year after 1921. The legislation was biased towards immigrants from Northern and Western Europe because those populations had more immigrants in the United States in 1921. These quotas would unfortunately prevent large numbers of European Jews from coming to the United States to escape the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act added preference categories to this quota system and those workers who had skills or relatives in the United States were admitted over others applying to come to the United States. In 1965, though, Congress abolished the quota system and shifted the emphasis on skills and relatives of permanent American residents for legal immigration.
So where does immigration from Mexico factor into this? After all, the news media makes it seem that illegal immigration is only a Mexican or Latin America issue, despite the fact that nearly twenty percent of illegal immigrants come from non-Latin American nations. Some of the difficulties with Mexican and Latin American immigration begin with the Mexican-American War in1 848 when the U.S. won a convincing victory and took control of 2/3rds of Mexico’s territory via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The territory won included Texas to the Rio Grande and much of the American Southwest. Overnight, thousands of Mexican families became part of the United States whether they wanted to or not and the treaty divided some family units. Mexican laborers continued to seasonally arrive in the United States to work in agriculture and in 1942 the United States established the “Bracero” program that would allow Mexican laborers to work in the U.S. on temporary work visas. This was in response to the demand for agricultural laborers during the Second World War. A 1951 U.S.-Mexican Labor Agreement made the “Bracero” program permanent, but in 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson ended it after hearing complaints about the pay and working conditions of Bracero workers. Nevertheless, workers kept coming to the United States in the aftermath of the Bracero program. The only difference was that this time the workers coming in to work for American agricultural industries did not have legal documents to do so and thereby became illegal immigrants. In subsequent decades, rising poverty, political corruption, the desire to unify families across the border, and American inefficiencies in handling green cards (which allows the person possessing it to have legal residency in the United States) increased the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Latin America in the United States. In 1986, the federal government passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation into law. IRCA provided an amnesty to all illegal immigrants who could prove that they had lived in the United States since January 1, 1982. It also mandated that employers verify if their workers were legally documented and they could be assessed fines of up to $10,000 per violation if they did not. The federal government estimates that 2.6 million illegal immigrants accepted the 1986 amnesty and became citizens of the United States.
IRCA was sold as solving America’s illegal immigration problem forever, but the numbers of illegal immigrants doubled in subsequent decades for several reasons. First, the poverty levels in Mexico and other Latin American countries grew as these nations struggled with debt crises and failed to provide their citizens with an ideal economic climate that would allow jobs to flourish. Some economists argue that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) did a lot of harm to the Mexican economy and increased illegal immigration by devastating the Mexican agricultural industry since it eliminated the nation’s tariffs on cheaper American farm products. As a result, Mexican farm laborers could no longer work in their country and migrated to the United States to provide for themselves and their families. Second, IRCA’s enforcement mechanisms on business were poorly enforced and businesses claimed that all they could do was ask a future employer for their Social Security number. Illegal immigrants simply wrote down a fake number and employers looked the other way. Third, the Mexican government actually encouraged illegal immigration to the United States by supplying future immigrants with maps on how to cross the border and opened Consular Registration centers that gave Mexican nationals identification when they reached the United States. The Mexican government justified these actions by claiming that they wanted to prevent their people from dying in the desert or falling victim to smugglers, but an economic motive was at play because remittances, which are funds sent from workers in another country back to their native country, provide the Mexican government with much needed foreign capital. Ten years ago, these remittances sent by workers to family members back home contributed an estimated $18 billion to the Mexican economy. And fourth, some cities like Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, and Seattle proclaimed themselves as “sanctuary cities” and refused to work with the federal government to report violations of immigration policy. This constituted a twentieth-century version of nullification, but the federal government has taken little to no action against sanctuary cities. The existence of these cities, which provides a way for illegal immigrants to live in the United States without fear of being identified, serves as a beacon for future illegal immigrants to come to the United States.
Recent Proposals for Immigration Reform
Since the 1986 IRCA legislation failed to solve the problem of illegal immigration, Washington D.C. has been abuzz for the last ten years on how to solve the nation’s illegal immigration problem. President George W. Bush tried to tackle the illegal immigration problem, but failed because of divisions within the Republican Party. Republicans tend to regard the 1986 amnesty as proof that amnesty packages do not work and they argue that another amnesty will just encourage more illegal immigrants to come to the United States. Republicans also argue that the border enforcement and employment enforcement provisions of IRCA were not followed through with by the federal government and that border security and workplace enforcement measures must take place before any form of amnesty is granted to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, Democrats argue that a new amnesty is needed because there is not a humane way to deport 11-12 million people, that some illegal residents in the United States were brought to the country as children and that deporting them to a native country that they have never grown up in would be inhumane, and border enforcement measures can happen in conjunction with an amnesty package. Democrats also sense that if more illegal immigrants are legalized that they will politically benefit, since Latino and Asian voters favor Democrats by wide margins over Republican candidates. One could argue that Republican political calculations in the matter are the opposite and that a mass legalization would accelerate the process of Republicans losing influence in national elections.
In 2005, Republicans in the House passed the Border Patrol, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. This legislation would have required 700 miles of fence to be built on the U.S.-Mexican border, created an electronic verification system that employers would be forced to use to check the legal status of their workforce, and most controversially would have made it a crime to aid someone that was legally in the United States. This bill failed to clear the Senate, though. Senator John McCain and Senator Ted Kennedy authored a bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill in 2006, which President Bush supported, and it was called the Comprehensive Immigration Act. The legislation allowed people that could prove they lived in the United States to acquire American citizenship as long as they paid back fines and taxes. This would legalize an estimated seven million people. Those illegal immigrants that could prove they lived in the United States from two to five years could remain in the United States for three more years, but then had to report to a border checkpoint and apply for citizenship. Anyone that had not lived in the United States for more than two years would be required to go home and, failing that, risk deportation back to their native country. The legislation required 370 miles of new fencing built on the U.S.-Mexican border, but Mexico would have to be consulted on fence construction and opponents charged that this provision meant that no new fencing would be built. Lastly, an amendment to the bill made English the national language of the United States. The bill seemed to gain some traction in the early going, but opposition to it grew in Republican circles during the summer of 2006 and the bill never passed the House.
When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he pledged to try to tackle immigration reform. However, President Obama spent most of his political capital and Democratic filibuster-proof majority in the Senate on the Affordable Care Act. In 2010, the Democratic House of Representatives passed what was called the DREAM Act, which would legalize children that were brought to the United States illegally by their parents. “Dreamers” is the name applied to this group of illegal immigrants. This bill was defeated by a Senate Republican filibuster. According to The Dallas Morning News on January 31st, months before the 2012 presidential election, President Obama used an executive order to create Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which has given two years of deportation relief and work visas to thousands of “Dreamers.” The Washington Examiner also writes on February 6th that President Obama, in response to the sequester and government shutdown, has released some detained illegal immigrants who are deemed of low risk to their home communities, a policy that has released thousands of illegal immigrants that are behind bars. However, President Obama has a mixed record on immigration in the eyes of immigration advocacy groups because The Washington Times notes on February 6th that the Obama administration had deported two million illegal immigrants in its five years in office, which is more than any other American president.
The 2012 presidential election provided some new momentum for immigration reform because President Obama’s more favorable policy toward the issue won him a high percentage of the Latino vote (71%) versus Republican challenger and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose immigration policy consisted of making conditions so harsh on illegal immigrants that they would voluntarily choose to go home. Romney’s share of the Latino vote, a measly 27%, is part of a downward trend among this demographic by recent Republican presidential candidates. Since the 1990s, only one Republican candidate has cracked above 32% of the vote with the Latino community: George W. Bush. In 2000, Bush won 35% of the Latino vote and won 44% of it in 2004. However, in 1996, Kansas Senator Bob Dole only won 21% of the Latino vote and in 2004 Arizona Senator John McCain won only 31% of the Latino vote. Political analysts theorize that the changing demographics of the United States necessitate that the Republican Party acquire a higher percentage of Latino votes and immigration reform is seen as a way to bolster the appeal of the party to Latino voters. In the aftermath of the election, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill 68-32 in June 2013. Called the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, the bill would establish a thirteen-year pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. It would add 40,000 more border patrol agents and create a new visa system that would reward immigrants that want to start a new business or possess valuable economic skills. Politico on February 5th explains that the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce, usually political opponents, supported the bill because it contains a guest worker program that includes wage protections for workers. The Chamber of Commerce argues that more guest workers are needed for certain industries in the United States, like construction, while the AFL-CIO is demanding that guest workers be held to the same wage standards as American workers so they do not lose jobs to temporary workers.
However, the Republican-controlled House has refused to consider the Senate immigration bill. Speaker of the House John Boehner will not let the Senate bill come to the floor, where it might pass with a combination of moderate Republican and Democratic votes, because the majority of the House Republican Caucus does not favor the legislation. This is called the “Hastert Rule.” It is an informal rule that Boehner could break, but some analysts speculate that if Boehner allowed the Senate immigration bill to come to the floor that he would face a mutiny by House Republicans and might be removed as Speaker. One difference between Republican and Democratic attitudes toward immigration reform is that Democrats favor a “comprehensive” approach whereby one large piece of legislation addresses legalization and border and workplace enforcement. Republicans favor a piecemeal approach where they want to pass smaller bills that address specific issues surrounding the illegal immigration debate. For example, Republicans want to pass bills that address border security and workplace enforcement. When those are adequately addressed they then want to move towards some type of legalization package for those illegal immigrants that are present in the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations on January 31st explains the Republican justification for this strategy by saying that Republicans fear that if they enact comprehensive reform that they lose all leverage for stronger border security measures since amnesty gives Democrats everything they want. They think they can get a better package out of dangling the carrot of amnesty in front of Democrats.
When House Republicans went on a policy retreat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore from January 29th-31st, Speaker Boehner unveiled a series of “principles” that the Republican Party should push for regarding immigration reform. Titled “Standards for Immigration Reform,” the Republican Party’s principles call for enhancing border security, allowing more immigration into the United States for legal workers, and providing legal status for illegal immigrants in the United States, albeit not citizenship. The conservative Heritage Foundation breaks these principles down on January 30th. To summarize, the Republican Party’s principles call for doing border security and interior enforcement steps first and then creating an entry-exit visa tracking system to monitor those who come into the country. There would also be an employment verification system created and reforms made to the legal immigration system to speed up the process of legal immigrants being able to come to the United States. Interestingly enough, the principles speak in favor of the DREAM Act and giving young illegal immigrants citizenship if they prove they were taken to the United States as children. Its last principle speaks of not granting a “special pathway to citizenship.” This is Washington-speak for not allowing illegal immigrants to jump legal immigrants in the line for citizenship. According to the unveiled Republican principles, illegal immigrants would be granted legal status if they met certain conditions. These conditions, as spelled out in The Washington Post of February 3rd, might include paying back taxes or a fine and demonstrating English proficiency. Legal status would enable these illegal immigrants to remain in the United States and they could become citizens, but would have to go “to the back of the line” and join those who are seeking legal residency in the United States through the proper channels.
President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke highly of the Republican Party’s principles and thought they might lay the foundation for an immigration deal, but they got ahead of themselves. Boehner tried his best to sell the new immigration principles to his fellow Republicans, but The Christian Science Monitor on January 31st says that those present at the policy retreat did not favor immigration reform by a 3:1 margin. Republican strategists blasted the principles as caving into the White House and argued that the issue is heavily divisive in Republican ranks. The Los Angeles Times reported on February 6th that these strategists warned that pushing for immigration reform before the 2014 midterms would depress Republican turnout and could the Republican Party a chance to retake control of the Senate. Last Thursday, Boehner announced that he would not pursue immigration reform in the near future until President Obama demonstrated that he will not work around Congress, which is a blast at President Obama’s proclamation in his State of the Union message that he will use executive actions to work around Congress. House Republicans charge that President Obama’s tinkering with the Affordable Care Act, his recent execution action on raising the minimum wage for those engaged in work under federal contracts, and his steps on immigration via executive action show that he cannot be trusted. This group of Republicans fear, as Marc Thiessen of The Washington Post writes for Fox News on February 3rd, that if they sign off on an immigration reform package that President Obama will use executive actions to undermine border enforcement measures, while keeping the amnesty components of the bill intact. Boehner’s sudden retreat from the House principles shows to his opponents that he cannot corral House Republicans behind one legislative package and The Week on February 7th likens the recent situation to Florida Senator, and potential 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, Marco Rubio’s retreat from supporting the Senate immigration bill due to conservative opposition.
The Road to Compromise?
For the rest of the season, extempers are probably going to receive questions about what a future immigration reform package should look like, if a deal can be reached before President Obama leaves office, and whether a deal is even possible between Republicans and Democrats. Although the House Republican leadership has backed away from immediate reform that does not mean compromise is completely dead. As The Los Angeles Times article previously cited points out, Boehner needs to keep the Republican caucus united behind him for the next debt ceiling fight with the White House. The bipartisan budget bill that recently passed Congress did not deal with the debt ceiling and it is expected that the debt ceiling will need to be raised by the end of the month. The Washington Post on February 6th explains that although Boehner has tried to attach approval of the Keystone-XL pipeline or repeal of the risk corridors of the Affordable Care Act to a debt ceiling package these are not gaining political traction and the Obama administration has steadfastly refused to negotiate with House Republicans on a conditional debt ceiling increase. Since it is likely that Boehner will have to avoid the Hastert Rule and get a “clean” debt ceiling bill passed with House Democrats, a move that will probably infuriate House Tea Party-aligned conservatives, his retreat on immigration reform is probably to avoid antagonizing that element of the House Republican Caucus so much that it threatens his leadership position.
Even with the House Republican retreat, there is still hope, as The Atlantic on January 30th notes, that House Republican principles can be combined with elements of the Senate immigration bill to produce a lasting compromise. A piecemeal approach to immigration reform might be preferred by moderates in Congress because the Senate immigration bill was 884 pages long and like the Affordable Care Act, it was alleged that many of the senators voting for the bill did not read it. Since the Affordable Care Act has suffered a great deal of negative press, it might be better for Congress to vote on smaller bills rather than a large, comprehensive package. The Huffington Post reports on January 31st that President Obama told CNN that he may compromise on an immigration bill that falls short of granting illegal immigrants a “special pathway” to citizenship, meaning that he may accept the House Republican idea of giving illegal immigrants legal status. Newsweek on January 28th said that it was notable that some Republicans stood up with Democrats and applauded President Obama’s call in his State of the Union speech to deal with immigration reform this year. Newsweek also took note of President Obama’s omission of the word “comprehensive” in the speech, which is another outreach to House Republicans that he might be willing to look at a smaller bill. The Washington Post on February 4th adds that Democrats do not dismiss the Republican piecemeal approach as long as that approach eventually produces a comprehensive immigration reform package.
However, this is not suggest that Democrats are completely on board with the Republican plan. For example, The Economist on January 31st explains that Democrats oppose any “triggers” in future immigration legislation that would set unreachable benchmarks. For example, any future legislation that called for the border to be “100% secure” before enacting any legalization legislation would likely be dead on arrival with the Democratic Senate. The AFL-CIO also opposes the Republican Party’s call for legal status and not citizenship since this means that those having legal status would not have the right to vote. The Christian Science Monitor in a separate article on January 31st adds that Democrats oppose not granting full citizenship to illegal immigrants that are non-Dreamers because it means that this group of people cannot get government benefits, bring family members into the country like legal residents, and avoid deportation if they commit a crime. However, the article quotes Democratic Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, who says that if legal status is all that Democrats can achieve for non-Dreamers that there will likely be enough Democratic votes to enact immigration reform. It is also possible that some Democratic anxieties about “second-class citizenship” might be allayed if illegal immigrants are able to appeal for naturalization in a reformed and more efficient immigration bureaucracy. After all, if illegal immigrants just have to go into the pool with those seeking naturalization, then they can still aspire to be full American citizens and can legally reside in the United States as they go through the process. Additionally, the Pew Research Center on December 23rd shows that 55% of Latinos favor being able to live/work in the United States legally without threat of deportation versus 35% who favor a pathway to citizenship. Asians are 49-44% in support of the legal residency provisions as well. This shows that the Republican plan is actually feasible to these groups, who value avoiding deportation above immediately securing citizenship. It should also be pointed out that not giving illegal immigrants immediate citizenship would not be proclaimed as “amnesty,” which could provide cover to Republicans who wish to support the bill and may lessen conservative opposition to a future bill. Therefore, this debate about legal status vs. citizenship is something that extempers should use in speeches about what a future immigration bill should look like because it seems to have the best chance of passing Congress at some point.
One of the interesting debates about immigration legislation is when to actually enact it. After their 2012 presidential election defeat, Republican elites are pushing for immediate immigration reform to increase the party’s appeal to Latino voters. It makes sense that if the Republicans push for immigration reform that they can escape one of the issues that is costing them votes, but The New York Times on February 1st explains that Latino voters are not single-issue voters and that their tilt to the Democratic Party often occurs because of socioeconomic reasons. Romney’s campaign was faulted in 2012 for not being empathetic to the poor and unemployed and this was a contributing factor in turning off Latinos. Latinos are also an interesting political group because although they favor an active government role in economics and society, they are also very religious and in some ways socially conservative on issues like traditional values and abortion. If the Republican Party can create an economic program that caters to the needs of the Latino community and emphasizes traditional values, they might be able to break through with this demographic outside of immigration reform. The Washington Post on January 31st provides an interesting breakdown on why the Republicans should avoid doing immigration reform before the 2014 midterms. Midterm elections generate lower turnout rates than presidential elections and the key for each party is motivating its base to turnout. Lower turnout races tend to favor Republican candidates since minorities and the poor are less likely to participate in those elections. The Post argues that districts with large Latino populations are largely held by Democrats, not Republicans, and that polls illustrate that a member of Congress that supports immigration reform is three times more likely to be punished by voters than rewarded. Due to the dynamics of a midterm election, The Post concludes that Republicans should do immigration reform after the midterm elections so as not to antagonize their base and improve their chances of winning the Senate. Enacting reform after the midterm elections would help the party appeal nationally to Latinos and national appeals and messaging is far more important in presidential races than midterm election campaigns. However, The Wall Street Journal of February 6th writes that Democrats might reach a different conclusion after the midterms and might be less likely to compromise before the 2016 presidential election when Latino and Asian turnout will be higher and they can use the lack of Republican action on immigration reform to their advantage. If extempers had to bet on when immigration reform will be enacted, it is best to shoot for the 2015-2016 time frame. Even if they do not win control of the Senate, a large number of Republicans will want to make a push for some type of immigration reform package before the presidential election and President Obama will likely be amenable to signing the legislation to add to his legacy.
Lastly, polling data suggests that Americans want something done on immigration reform. PollingReport.com provides an excellent source for extempers looking for poll data and a recent CNN/ORC poll from January 31st-February 2nd showed that 54% of Americans favor legal residency for illegal immigrants. The Pew Research Center polling data cited earlier shows that American attitudes toward immigrants have warmed over the last twenty years as well. Whereas in 1994 only 31% of Americans thought immigrants helped the economy and 63% felt they were a burden, new data suggests that 49% of Americans believe immigrants help the economy and 41% think they are a burden. 75% of Americans also think that legalization of illegal immigrants will help the economy versus 23% who think it will do harm to the economy. Still, Americans have non-negotiables about what illegal immigrants should have to do in order to be legalized and/or secure citizenship as 76% think they should have to learn English, 56% think they should have to pay a fine, and 55% think they should have to wait ten years before acquiring citizenship. This data illustrates that Democrats and Republicans share some of the right ideas on how to proceed with immigration reform and The Christian Science Monitor on February 6th argues that President Obama is being encouraged by the Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank, to win the trust of House Republicans by not using more executive orders on immigration, create closer relationships with House leaders, and better emphasize the administration’s track record on immigration. If President Obama plays his cards right, he might be able to secure immigration reform before the end of his presidency which would add to his legacy and potentially solve a decades-old problem in American politics.