Sargent: A GOP nod for Obama on immigration

WASHINGTON - Was President Barack Obama's announcement that he will block deportations of hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants an abuse of power and an affront to the Constitution that will only encourage further lawbreaking? Many apoplectic Republicans and conservatives have argued as much.

But not Mark Shurtleff, Utah's conservative attorney general. He dismissed those objections in an interview on Friday, arguing the move was good law enforcement policy and even a "conservative" solution.

"This is clearly within the president's power," Shurtleff told me. "I was pleased when the president announced it." Shurtleff, a Mitt Romney supporter who is a die-hard conservative on many other issues, is perhaps the nation's most prominent Republican staking out an alternative to the GOP's hard line on immigration. His support for the president's policy represents a larger split within the party, between those who see Arizona as a model for the nation and those who want the party to take another approach to demographic (and related political) realities.

Shurtleff noted that this decision was not made via executive order and that the administration has discretion to decide whom to prosecute.

"Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them - until Congress acts, we'll be left with too many people to deport," Shurtleff said. "The administration is saying, 'Here's a group we could be spending our resources going after, but why? They're Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.' " By allowing children brought here illegally to attend school and work, Shurtleff added, the president's plan could encourage them to stay out of gangs - which Shurtleff called a "conservative" goal. He dismissed the claim that illegal immigration would be encouraged, noting that Obama's plan applies only to those who came to this country before age 16, who are younger than 30 and who have been in the country for at least five continuous years.

Shurtleff also rejected the argument that this constitutes "amnesty" because it gives illegal immigrants the legal status they were trying to steal.

"You're not giving 1/8legal status 3/8 to the parents who came here," Shurtleff said. "You're giving it to the child who was brought here. That child didn't get to choose."

Greg Sargent writes "The Plum Line" blog, a reported opinion blog with a liberal slant, for The Washington Post.