President made the right immigration call

President Obama used his executive powers to make some needed changes in the way the Justice Department handles young, undocumented immigrants. They will now have a chance to remain in this country to try and become U.S. Citizens. Obama’s order grants temporary legal status to nearly a million undocumented people brought to this country as children.

Was this political? Some have claimed that Obama just did it to secure more of the Hispanic vote. Does the president really need to court the Hispanic vote when he already polls three times higher than his Republican opponent Mitt Romney? I wouldn’t think so. It is more likely he acted because we have a “do-nothing Congress” that has failed to address the problem of illegal immigrants in this country. Both sides of the aisle talk about immigration reform, yet everyone sits on their hands.

Romney is for “self-deportation” a laughable approach to immigration if there ever was one. Romney, the Republican candidate, says we should wait for Congress to act. While he says he will rescind the president’s order if elected, and replace with his yet undisclosed immigration policy, many leading conservatives agree with the move by the president. These include Bill Kristol and George Will. Kristol called it a “sensible policy” and “the right thing to do” on Fox News, although he’d like to have seen Congress act. Wouldn’t we all?

We have hundreds of thousand of children and young adults who were brought to this country through no choice of their own and have gone on to be good citizens in name, if not in legality. Those that want to stay and who are making the effort to live the American dream should have a chance to change their legal status. They are our neighbors, they share a classroom with our children, they play on our sports teams. Many go on to serve in the military or attend our colleges. We should support those who want to become good, contributing citizens of our county and send back those who don’t. But doing nothing is certainly not a choice.

Obama’s Justice Department has deported more undocumented aliens than his predecessor. Just a few short months ago he said couldn’t act on this issue, we’re glad he found a way. Maybe this will be the push to get the “do-nothing Congress” to act on real immigration reform.