Immigration: Who's Job is it?

President Obama's announcement of his executive order taking action on immigration reform last month has rekindled in a whole new way the discussion on the problem of the broken immigration system in the United States.

President Obama's speech on November 20 made me think back to a speech President George W. Bush gave in May 2006.  As I looked over the major points of each, I couldn't help but notice the similar intentions of each President: secure and strengthen the borders, provide easier means for those who want to work in the United States to do so, deporting immigrants who are criminals, and deal with the many law-abiding immigrants here already without proper documents, by making them pay penalties and then go through a strict process to obtain citizenship, in line behind those who followed the rules, all the while respecting the rich heritage of our country as a nation of immigrants.

The big difference this time around is that President Obama is taking matters into his own hand by issuing an executive order.  Certainly, the concept of the executive order is only implied in the US Constitution as one of the powers of the President, and it should be carefully used.  The problem I see with President Obama's executive order, besides the fact that he's using it when there's no immediate pressing need, is that it's only a band-aid for a large, complex issue.  It doesn't really do all that much, because the President by himself, can only do so much to remedy the problem.  (In fact, looking over the executive order, I can't really even tell what it's exactly doing.)

The real solution needs to come from Congress's passing a bill for comprehensive immigration reform.  Because that hasn't happened, people like President Obama are being pushed to take these kinds of actions, similar to how Arizona passed a controversial immigration law a few years ago, because the federal government hasn't been effectively doing its job.  It's time for Congress members to come together, with other experts on the various particulars of immigration system, to craft legislation that will thoroughly resolve the issues and provide for a better process for immigrants to the United States.