This page includes links to (then) United States President Barack Obama’s announcement on deferred action for illegal immigrants made on Thursday, November 20, 2014, and the reactions of different people to his announcements. We focus on the reactions of Open Borders: The Case bloggers and others affiliated with the open borders movement.

Basic information about the announcement

• Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Immigration, official White House Press Release, November 20, 2014.
• Full text: Obama’s immigration speech, USA Today, November 21, 2014 (warning: this auto-plays the video of the speech, but you can stop it).
• Fixing Our Broken Immigration System Through Executive Action – Key Facts on the Department of Homeland Security website, detailing the steps being taken by the Obama administration.
• USCIS page on the proposed immigration actions.

Factual analysis and summary

• Executive Action on Immigration: A Resource Page on the Immigration Policy Center website.
• MPI: As Many as 3.7 Million Unauthorized Immigrants Could Get Relief from Deportation under Anticipated New Deferred Action Program, press release from the Migration Policy Institute, November 20, 2014.
• Obama’s huge new immigration plan, explained by Dara Lind, Vox, November 21, 2014.

Analysis from an open borders and/or radical migration liberalization perspective: pre-announcement speculation and advice

• What should the Obama administration do? by Michelangelo Landgrave, published shortly before the announcement, where he describes what he thinks the Obama administration should do.
• The Bottom Line by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, November 20, 2014, where he expresses pessimism about the number of people who might benefit from Obama’s to-be-announced executive action.
• A Nice Quote for Obama’s Immigration Address by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, November 20, 2014. See also our pages on law versus legislation.
• Immigration and the US Constitution by Ilya Somin, Open Borders: The Case, March 18, 2013. Although this post was written quite a while back and was not specifically intended for Obama’s deferred action announcement, it was highly relevant to the announcement. In the hours leading up to and immediately after the announcement, organic search traffic to the blog post reached unprecedented highs, as noted in an Open Borders Action Group post.

Two pieces by Alex Nowrasteh offer an excellent mix of factual analysis and policy advocacy, and are listed below:

• Interpreting Obama’s Immigration Executive Order by Alex Nowrasteh, Cato at Liberty blog, November 17, 2014.
• Obama’s Immigration Executive Order – Policy Implications by Alex Nowrasteh, Cato at Liberty blog, November 19, 2014.

Analysis after the announcement from open borders advocates (offering a mix of analysis, advocacy, and personal introspection)

• We still have much to do by Michelangelo Landgrave, published on November 21, 2014, a day after the announcement, where he describes how the Obama administration’s move is only a baby step in the direction he’d like to go.
• Obama, immigration, and the rule of law by Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy, The Washington Post, November 20, 2014.
• The Lawful Neutral Case for Deferred Action by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, November 21, 2014, quoting from and offering additional observations on Somin’s post.
• Obama’s executive order on immigration is good policy, as well as good law – but not quite as good as it may seem by Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy, The Washington Post, November 21, 2014.
• On Obama’s Immigration Executive Order by Donald Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek, November 21, 2014, quoting from Somin’s first post and referencing Caplan’s post and Somin’s second post.
• Bad Laws Lead to Bad Executive Orders by Alex Nowrasteh, U.S. News and World Online, November 21, 2014.
• Are there limits to executive discretion in enforcing federal law? by Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy, The Washington Post, November 22, 2014.
• Thank Obama for All He’s Done by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, November 25, 2014.
• Executive Action, Not Legislative Reform, Is How U.S. Immigration Policy Gets Made Now by David Bennion, Open Borders: The Case, November 25, 2014.
• Which states oppose DAPA? by Michelangelo Landgrave, Open Borders: The Case, December 29, 2014. The post showed that the states that had filed suit against DAPA seemed to, if anything, have a smaller illegal immigrant share of their population than other states.

Analysis and reporting from others

• Obama’s Executive Action Is Good Policy, Bad Law, and Terrible Precedent by Ilya Shapiro, Cato at Liberty blog, November 21, 2014.
• Six Lousy Responses to Obama’s Immigration Announcement by Ed Krayewski, Reason Magazine, November 21, 2014.

See also

• Obama de facto DREAM Act, our resource page on Obama’s announcement of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an executive implementation of the DREAM Act, along with responses from many quarters, including open borders advocates.