Obama's Immigration Surprise Puts Romney and GOP on the Spot

Personally, I support Barack Obama's surprise announcement that the young illegal aliens born in the USA or brought here in early childhood who have lived their entire lives and gone to school in America will not be summarily deported.  Frankly, it's the morally correct thing to do - even the true Christian thing to do, if you will.  However, I'm sure that the immigrant haters - many of whom are little more than white supremacists absent the white robes and hoods - in the GOP (many of whom meanwhile hypocritically wrap themselves in religion) will be less than pleased.  And the situation will force Mitt Romney to take a position that will either appease the anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic GOP base or utterly alienate many in the fast growing Hispanic demographic.  Romney's disingenuous song and dance as he likely tries to be all things to all people will be interesting to watch.  Here are highlights from a New York Times piece:

In many ways, President Obama’s unilateral shift in immigration policy was a bluntly political move, a play for a key voting bloc in the states that will decide whether he gets another term. But as political moves go, it held the potential for considerable payoff. 

It sent a clear signal to fast-growing Hispanic populations in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and other states that he understood their frustration at his lack of progress so far in addressing problems with the immigration system and reducing the number of deportations. 

After two weeks in which his re-election campaign often seemed to be struggling to cope with events and losing the upper hand to Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama, for a day at least, was able to drive the agenda. And the president’s announcement put Mr. Romney, whose party is already split on the issue, in a tough spot, pressuring him to choose between further alienating Latino voters who chafed at the anti-illegal immigration stances he took in the primary season and alienating conservatives who reject policies resembling amnesty.

The timing of the announcement appeared to have been carefully calibrated. Next week, Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama are scheduled to appear before a group of Hispanic elected officials on successive days in Florida, a ready-made opportunity for the president to draw a contrast in their positions before a swing-state audience.

[P]olling suggests considerable public opposition in both parties to deporting people already in the country illegally, and support for steps that would allow otherwise law-abiding young people who arrived in the United States illegally to stay.

Democrats have long seen immigration as the best example of how Mr. Romney’s move to the right during the bitterly contested Republican primary could complicate his ability to create a broad general election coalition. During the primary season, Mr. Romney opposed the Dream Act, proposed legislation that would have allowed many young illegal immigrants to remain in the country and would have given them a path to citizenship. As he has moved into the general election and confronted the need to compete for Latino voters, his campaign has tried to finesse the issue by saying that the focus of his outreach to Hispanics would be on jobs and the economy, and his initial response to Mr. Obama’s decision on Friday was to focus less on its substance than its unilateral nature. 

Congressional Republicans were more pointed in their criticism, but they too were careful not to oppose some kind of solution to the problem of young people who are in the country illegally but who are productive, otherwise law-abiding residents.

Their caution reflected concern within the Republican Party that they are at risk of giving up a chance to win the political allegiance of Hispanics, not just for this election but for years to come. 

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, called this week for the party to do more to connect with Hispanic voters. And just before Mr. Obama’s announcement, former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi told reporters in Washington on Friday that Republicans, for political and business reasons, should support plans to let workers who are not citizens stay in the country.


Some advisers have argued that Mr. Romney has more to lose by exposing himself to charges of shifting positions over illegal immigration than he has to gain by appealing to a slice of the Latino constituency that ranks immigration a top concern — because those voters already support Mr. Obama.