Dick Durbin: “What a terrible moment in the history of this Nation. The President of the United States, having waited for a year and a…”

“What a terrible moment in the history of this Nation. The President of the United States, having waited for a year and a half, having heard all of the promises of the House Republicans, that they would move forward and finally call this bill, having been promised privately and even publicly by many of those Republicans that they were going to do something, now the President has said: I am going to use my authority, my authority under the law, to try to fix at least some part of this broken immigration system. We are expecting, any day now, for the President to announce his Executive order. He will not be the first President to do this. Past administrations, Democratic and Republican, have stopped the deportation of low-priority cases in our country. Every President of the United States--every President of the United States since Dwight David Eisenhower has used his Executive authority to improve our immigration system by Executive order, every single one of them. President George H.W. Bush issued a family fairness policy allowing 1.5 million people in America to apply for deferred action and work permits. It is clear that Presidents have the authority to do this. Yet the Republicans in the Senate and House have threatened this President that if he uses his Executive authority, as every President since President Eisenhower has done: We are going to hold it against you and you are going to pay a price, President Obama.…”