This would be
welcome news, if true.
President Obama will ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan. [...]
One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.
Republicans are already gearing up for a massive freakout, because
that is what they do.
Republican lawmakers blasted the White House on the heels of a Fox News report that President Obama is planning to unveil a 10-part plan for overhauling U.S. immigration policy via executive action as early as next week – with one GOP leader warning there will be “an explosion” if the president moves too soon. [...]
"He will make the issue absolutely toxic for a decade,” Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., said Thursday. [...]
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said Thursday if Obama acts before the spending bill is done, there will be an “explosion.”
There seems little risk of making the "issue" any more toxic than it has been, and pushing reforms forward over Republican objections seem the only way to achieve any reforms at all. Despite Republican theories to the contrary Obama is still the sitting U.S. president, and like past presidents he therefore can set executive branch policies in keeping with his preferred agenda.