Newsmax — President Barack Obama plans to describe the steps he will take to fix the immigration system in an address to the nation on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET , the White House said on its Facebook page on Wednesday.
“Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken. Unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long,” Obama said in a video announcement posted to the website.
“So what I’m going to be laying out is the things that I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system work better even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem,” he said.
Obama also said he will travel to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas on Friday to discuss his action. The school was where he first laid out his ideas for immigration reform two years ago, he said.
Republicans have been lining up a response strategy while activists are managing their expectations.
Under the executive action plan, Obama would ease immigration rules on millions of undocumented immigrants, a source familiar with White House deliberations, has told Reuters.
The order, which will set up a showdown between the White House and Republicans in Congress, would give relief from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or of permanent legal residents, according to the source, who asked not to be identified.
According to Politico, congressional leaders and potential Republican presidential candidates are preparing legislation and arguments to deploy an effective public offensive, while attempting to avoid turning off Hispanic voters.
Former, and possibly future, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the party should focus on the negative economic impact of a policy that could give as many as five million illegal immigrants access to work permits.
“Is this a constitutional crisis? Yes,” the former Pennsylvania senator told Politico. “But we have to put it in terms of … what it means to average working Americans. At a time when the economy is struggling and wages are stagnant, you’re dumping 5 million people into the workforce.”
