President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday the U.S. immigration steps that will protect up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation in the United States, The Washington Times reported.
The expected announcement, which will be made from the White House at 8 p.m. EST, comes as Republican lawmakers warn Obama that taking executive action on immigration might poison relations with the new GOP led legislature, while Democrats pressure him to deliver on his promise to reduce deportations.
While everyone agrees the immigration system is broken, Washington has allowed the problem "to fester for too long," Obama said in a video released on Facebook.
"What I'm going to be laying out is the things that I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system better, even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem," Obama said.
Two weeks ago, Obama had reportedly ignored congressional Republicans' warning to refrain from taking executive action that would stem deportations, allow a flood of new immigrants into the country and make work permits eligible for illegal immigrants. Instead, the president told Republicans that he planned to move ahead unless the GOP passed a bill and advanced immigration legislation, the Washington Examiner reports.
After making the announcement on Thursday, Obama will travel to Las Vegas on Friday and speak at Del Sol High School, a school with a large population of non-English speaking students where Obama unveiled his blueprint for comprehensive immigration legislation in 2013.
"Republicans are vehemently opposed to the president's likely actions, with some conservative members threatening to pursue a government shutdown if Obama follows through on his promises to act before the end of the year," according to the Associated Press.
"A wide-ranging immigration bill passed the Senate last year, but stalled in the Republican-led House. Obama vowed this summer to instead pursue changes to the immigration system using his own authority but delayed the measures until after the midterm elections, in part because of concerns from some Democrats facing tough races."
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson stated that the president's comprehensive U.S. immigration policy will include border security measures. And even though he stated that the 10-point agenda will not be legal, he also believed that the president needed to take the steps since Congress was proving to be stagnant on the issue.
Meanwhile, any unilateral action promises to draw the ire of Republicans in Congress, according to TheBlaze.
"When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself," Boehner warned last week. "And he's gonna burn himself if he continues to go down this path. The American people made it clear on election day: they want to get things done, and they don't want the president acting on a unilateral basis."
"If 'Emperor Obama' ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his Constitutional authority, he will cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue - and many others," the spokesman, Michael Steel, said.
But Astrid Silva, an organizer for the group Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said the president "has a duty to keep his promise and use his full legal authority to take action where Congress has failed."
On Tuesday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said that he believes the GOP will use the immigration issue to "introduce an impeachment resolution" against Obama.
"They know that this is an issue that the president feels very strongly about," Clyburn said. "They believe that the president is so committed to this issue that he will, in fact, perform an executive order to get it done and that will be the peg in which they will hang an impeachment resolution."
