WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will announce his intention Thursday to use his executive powers to shield millions of immigrants from deportation, the most significant presidential intervention to alter the U.S. immigration system in nearly three decades.
Using a rare prime-time address from the White House, Obama hopes to build public support for his decision to remake border control laws without approval from Congress. The move is likely to spark a major political fight about the limits of presidential power.
Obama will provide more details at a rally with immigration advocates in Las Vegas on Friday as the White House begins to mobilize grassroots support for the effort.
Obama is expected to announce measures that would make as many as 4 million immigrants eligible for temporary protected status and provide relief to an additional 1 million through other means, according to people briefed on the plans.
He also will take steps to expand visas for high-tech workers, modify federal immigrant detention procedures, and add resources to strengthen security at the border, they said.
“Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken,” Obama said in a brief video on his Facebook page Wednesday. “Unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long.”
But even as he moved to address an old problem, Obama created a new political tempest on Capitol Hill, where Republicans quickly denounced his actions less than two weeks after voters handed the GOP full control of Congress.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, referred to the president as “Emperor Obama” and charged that he was exceeding his constitutional authority and cementing “his legacy of lawlessness.”
Several GOP members suggested using a government spending bill next month to counter Obama’s move by defunding related immigration programs, setting up the potential for a government shutdown.
“This is presidential overreach of monumental proportions,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “It’s a direct erosion of congressional power. … I think Congress needs to and will resist and do so in a way that is responsible.”
The showdown comes two years after Obama, fresh off his 2012 re-election, announced he would pursue a legislative overhaul of immigration laws as he sought to fulfill a campaign promise to Latino and Asian-American supporters who were frustrated that he had not done more on immigration in his first term.
An 18-month effort to pass legislation, which included a path to citizenship, collapsed this summer in the face of strenuous opposition in the Republican-controlled House.
In June, Obama promised to act aggressively on the problem in areas where the law allowed the use of his executive authority.
Administration lawyers have spent months reviewing case law and meeting with immigration advocates, law enforcement officials and legal experts to develop options for Obama, who reviewed them with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder.
Under his plan, Obama will provide administrative relief to parents who are in the country illegally and whose children are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, an adult population that reaches an estimated 3.46 million, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute.
However, the president’s order also will require the parents to have lived in the United States for a certain number of years — likely 10. The average immigrant here illegally has lived in the country for 13 years.
Many of those who receive administrative relief also would be eligible to apply for work permits.
Obama also is expected to expand a 2012 program that has deferred the deportations of nearly 600,000 younger immigrants known as “dreamers” who were brought into the country illegally as children.
His plans would expand that program by raising the maximum current age from 30 and raising the maximum arrival age above 16.
However, it is not known how many years of eligibility he will add at either end or how many more people would be covered.
Obama will stop short of extending protections to hundreds of thousands of parents of the dreamers, after the White House Office of Legal Counsel determined that doing so would exceed the president’s legal authorities to act unilaterally, according to the people briefed on the plans.
About 671,000 parents live with children who are in the country illegally, and 6.5 million live with no children at all — meaning that most of them are unlikely to be eligible for deportation relief, although some might qualify under other potential changes, including if they serve in the U.S. military.
“Even if they help 5 million people, a lot of others will be left out, but it is still a huge step forward and an historic decision. It is one of the biggest victories we’ve ever had,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a national immigrant advocacy group based in Washington.
White House officials declined to provide details about the president’s announcement, but Johnson called the plan “comprehensive.” He and other administration officials emphasized that Obama remains supportive of Congress’ undertaking a broader legislative fix to immigration laws.
While some Republicans appear eager for a fight with the White House, others cautioned that the party should tread carefully.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the soon-to-be majority leader, expressed confidence that congressional Republicans will extend the government’s funding, which is to expire next month.
