Relieve suffering, restore rationality Chris Newman

As a legal matter, the question is not whether President Obama has discretion to enforce immigration law. It is how he should do it, particularly given limited enforcement resources. To date, his exercise of discretion has resulted in unprecedented deportations and arbitrary, unequal and unjust treatment of immigrants.

In the coming weeks, the president’s policy is set to evolve. If he provided affirmative protection for all those immigrants who would qualify for citizenship under the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate, he would alleviate suffering and restore rationality to the system. And while this would undoubtedly be met with hostility from House Republicans, it would likely improve prospects for eventual legislation.

For more than a decade, lack of progress on immigration has become a symbol of a broken Congress. Despite a clear policy consensus supported by a majority of lawmakers, and despite a moral imperative for reform made visible by a vibrant immigrant rights movement, legislation has been held hostage by a shrill minority. Their intolerance, fear of changing demographics and — at times — outright racism has stalled national progress.

Obama’s response has been to pursue an aggressive deportation policy in an unsuccessful effort to assuage House Republicans and clear a path for legislation. But his punitive policy only emboldened xenophobes to become ever more unreasonable.

In hindsight, it should have been clear that no amount of enforcement would have appeased a Tea Party movement that long ago accused the president of tyranny in a deliberate strategy to denude his executive authority.

The president is on solid ground to change course. Past congressional action left statutes endowing the executive branch with vast untapped legal discretion. Current congressional inaction has created political space.

And for the nativists who are unhappy if and when the president does the right thing, the Constitution offers them clear recourse: They can join Sarah Palin’s call for impeachment, they can run for president in 2016 to undo the policy, or they can call upon Congress to actually pass legislation.