Obama invites fury at home and abroad over immigration, climate

BARACK Obama unleashes the fury of Congress over immigration reforms and insults Australia over climate change.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has unleashed the fury of Congress and invited a showdown with Republicans after ordering far-reaching changes to the US immigration system that will protect nearly 5 million people from deportation.

The moves, affecting mostly parents and young people, marked the most sweeping changes to fractured immigration laws in nearly three decades and set off a fierce fight with Republicans who accused Mr Obama of presidential ‘over-reach.’

“The action he’s proposed would ignore the law, would reject the voice of the voters, and would impose new unfairness on law-abiding immigrants — all without solving the problem,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“The president will come to regret the chapter history writes if he does move forward,” he added.

The new battle front with the Republicans opened up as, here in Australia, Julie Bishop made the rare move of publicising her displeasure at a speech Mr Obama made in Brisbane at the weekend.

The Australian this week revealed the Queensland government, as host of last weekend’s G20 summit in Brisbane, was considering a formal complaint to Washington over what it saw as an insulting and provocative speech by the US President that was based on “misinformation” about management of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Foreign Minister, in New York to chair UN Security Council terrorism talks, this morning said she was “surprised” by Mr Obama’s remarks and had since sent a “detailed briefing” to the Oval Office on the issue.

After turning up the heat on Prime Minister Tony Abbott over climate change in a private meeting Mr Obama, speaking at the University of Queensland on Saturday, said climate change “here in Australia” means “longer droughts, more wildfires” and “the incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened”.

“I have not had a chance to go to the Great Barrier Reef and I want to come back, and I want my daughters to be able to come back, and I want them to be able to bring their daughters or sons to visit,” he said.

Ms Bishop said state and federal agencies were contributing $180 million annually to manage the health of the reef.

“I wanted to ensure the White House was well aware of the significant steps that the Australian government and the Queensland government were taking to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef is not threatened by climate change, by nutrient run off from agriculture, by mining or drilling,” she told Sky News.

In Washington, Mr Obama defended the legality of his actions and challenged Republican lawmakers to focus their energy not on blocking his actions, but on approving long-stalled legislation to take its place.

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill,” Mr Obama said.

But as he moves into the final years of his presidency with all eyes on his legacy the Republicans warned that Mr Obama would face serious consequences for what they described as an unconstitutional power grab.

“That’s just not how our democracy works,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement released minutes after the White House unveiled details of Obama’s plan, which lifts the threat of deportation for up to five million people living in the shadows.

“The president has said before that ‘he’s not king’ and he’s ‘not an emperor,’ but he’s sure acting like one.”

In Washington Republicans, who take full control of congress in January after capturing the Senate from Democrats, have spent weeks considering ways they might be able to block Mr Obama’s executive order.

Party leaders are seeking to avoid a government shutdown, saying such moves could backfire and anger voters ahead of the next presidential election in two years.

“I will try to defund the effort for him to go it alone,” warned Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who helped craft landmark immigration reform legislation last year that passed the Senate but failed in the Republican-run House of Representatives.

“We will challenge him in court.” Senator Rand Paul, a favourite of the Tea Party movement that widely opposes Obama’s immigration action, called on the House to pass a resolution condemning the plan as illegal, a move that could pave the way for a court challenge.

Congress must soon debate and pass spending legislation that funds government in 2015, and conservatives are eyeing the must-pass bills as potential leverage against the immigration order.

Several have argued for defunding the federal agencies responsible for issuing temporary work permits. But the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the budget process, indicated that such action would be impossible, because the main agency tasked with implementing Obama’s plan is self-funded through immigration application fees and not through the budget approved by Congress.

The White House says the president is exercising his executive authority to tackle immigration reform unilaterally, as Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did before him.