Few points here.
1. Q, you want to focus first on border security. Sounds great but not only would it take years.
That's true, which is why you get started on it. Had Obama pushed that in 2009 instead of doing the opposite, we'd have had those "years", and the southern border at least might well be comparatively secure now.
Be practically impossible due to the sheer length of the border and cost entirely too much.
First, you don't have to have an absolutely impenetrable border. Just much, much better than the way it is today, which is certainly attainable.
As for it being "practically impossible", the freaking Chinese managed to build a much longer wall across an entire border -- including deserts, mountain ranges, etc., -- thousands of years ago. They did it without modern construction equipment, road networks, or building materials. Why is it so impossible today? We spent $900B on a stimulus bill in 2009, barely 5% of which was infrastructure/construction. Even the high estimates of a southern border fence were below $50B. Had we spent some of that stimulus money on a fence, we'd actually have something concrete to show for all that cash in addition to putting all those construction people to work. Instead, Obama actually
cancelled fence expenditures that already had been planned.
It's ignoring the fundamental issue that we have illegals here already. Amnesty and making our immigration system easier and cheaper not only allows those here to start on the path to citizenship, it makes there much less of an incentive to cross illegally.
To the contrary, if you have a system that legalizes those that are "already here", when there is not a reliable system for proving who was "already here" and who wasn't, you've greatly increased the incentive for people to cross. Because if they cross, they can be legalized.
2. Republicans are a walking hypocritical mess on immigration. Want border security yet many are elected and influenced by big companies that exploit illegal labor.
As I said upthread, the GOP is not monolithic. You have a faction that wants tighter border controls, and a faction that wants more cheap labor. They are very often not the same people. You have factions within the Democratic party as well on this issue.
Max calling Obama the most divisive president ever or recent history is incorrect. Obama spent much of his first term trying to act bipartisan and the republicans employed a strategy of doing nothing and holding the system in a deadlock. That was a result of the tea party movement.
You seem to be advancing the idea that Congress has some sort of obligation to approve the President's agenda. It doesn't. "Deadlock" -- meaning there is not substantial agreement on major policy initiatives -- is a perfectly "constitutional" condition that was deliberately built into the Constitution. The Framers leaned towards a government doing less, not more. They thought considered inaction to be preferable to rash or unwise action. So, they structurally biased the system by giving just one House of Congress the ability to stop legislation.
Obama has been "divisive" in the sense that he's not has a good relationship with Congress
period. You don't have to look far to find Democrats who believe the White House has been insular, unwilling to listen/make deals, etc.. I think there are some in the White House who believe Congress' responsibility is limited to doing the "detail work" of drafting actual legislation, but that it should basically rubber stamp the President's broad policies. And that just ain't true. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Congress opposing at the outset the entire thrust of a Presidential initiative with which it disagrees.
4. While his executive order is beyond the Reagan and Bush, extending amnesty in this manner in my opinion is certainty within the spirit of those. It's largely uncharted territory and as Obama said, pass a bill rather than sit and get pissy. The refusal to put the bill to a vote, the same do nothing method republicans have been adhering to for years, bit them in the ass.
Unlike some others, I agree Obama has the Constitutional authority to refuse to enforce the law, even if some might claim it is not in keeping with the "spirit" of the Constitution. The proper Congressional response is to do the same -- use all of its Constitutional authority, even if some may say that is not being used as intended either.
So for starters, I'd freeze all judicial nominees at the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court level until the end of his term. And if that doesn't get his attention, expand the freeze to nominations outside the judicial context.
