Obama plan is wrong path to immigration reform

President Barack Obama is poised to announce, probably Friday, his version of immigration reform. Like his earlier move in the field, in which he deferred deportation of many immigrant children in the country, this one will be put in place without benefit of a specific law setting out his plan.

Not that he’ll say that. Rather, he’s likely to point to advice from supporters that says, in effect, “if you don’t like the current law, Mr. President, you may simply ignore it and do as you wish.” And while we agree wholeheartedly with the need for real immigration reform, what the president is likely to propose is hardly the way to go about it.

Predictions are that Obama will give deportation deferrals and work permits to the undocumented parents of American citizens or legal permanent residents, according to The New York Times. Parents will have to have been in the country five years to qualify, and estimates are that 5 million undocumented residents will do so.

What he does not plan to do, apparently, is to make those awarded the new status eligible for such things as the Affordable Care Act health care subsidies or other need-based programs available to some noncitizen residents. That, we suspect, is a purely political decision. Unhappy as an order barring benefits is likely to make a substantial chunk of Americans, one granting benefits would upset them even more.

Again, we agree with the need for immigration reform.

A presidential executive order hardly qualifies, however. Its provisions may evaporate in as little as two years, for one thing, leaving those who qualified in a more precarious position than before. As Obama himself has said, they can be overturned by Congress immediately, if Congress so wishes, or rescinded by him or his successor.

While Obama’s actions may or may not, in fact, be strictly legal, they certainly violate the spirit of American government, in which Congress writes laws, sometimes at the president’s behest, and the president signs and enforces them. There’s good reason for that progression: It requires substantial bipartisan buy-in to make dramatic changes to the status quo.

An executive order sidesteps any effort to get that buy-in. Instead, it’s likely only to make current divisions on the subject worse.