President Obama on immigration

The Republicans have nothing.

Jonathan Chait on the president's initiative (Republicans Hand Obama an Immigration Political Triumph):

Immediately after the election, when John Boehner asked Obama to hold off on unilateral action, reporters asked if he would promise to bring an immigration bill to the House floor. He refused. A senior administration official pinpointed this as the moment when any chance of delay ended. For all the drama surrounding President Obama’s announcement that he would ease immigration enforcement, the decision was always a very easy one to make. It was not even a decision Obama made so much as one that was made for him. Nor was the choice especially difficult to grapple with. The humanitarian and political logic all point in the same direction...

...Substantively, Obama’s executive order gives him less than he hoped to gain with a bipartisan law. But politically, he has ceded no advantage. Indeed, he has gained one. Not only does immigration remain a live issue, it is livelier than ever. The GOP primary will remorselessly drive its candidates rightward and force them to promise to overturn Obama’s reform, and thus to immediately threaten with deportation some 5 million people---none of whom can vote, but nearly all of whom have friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors who can...