The President is not a dictator (fortunately). Almost any attempt at immigration reform in the last eight years has been shot down by the House, Senate or usually both. There is only so much he was able to do without them on-side.

The problem with this reasoning is that "Immigration reform" is tied directly to some way of providing relief to millions of undocumented ("illegal") immigrants in the US. It seems like the legal immigrants facing the brunt of the current arcane immigration policy (mostly legal immigrants from India/China) are neither politically active nor have the required numbers to influence the Legislature/White House to reform these policies.

It is this conflation that hurts the legal immigrants the most. I believe if a bill was introduced to reform the legal immigration process to permit more highly skilled workers to immigrate more easily, neither of the houses (nor the public) would have a problem with it.

> if a bill was introduced to reform the legal immigration process to permit more highly skilled workers to immigrate more easily, neither of the houses (nor the public) would have a problem with it

When the Democrat leadership argues for "comprehensive immigration reform" they are shooting down separating skilled from low-skilled immigration.

"Senate lawmakers who are most involved with immigration legislation--the so-called Gang of Eight--would prefer to see a comprehensive deal. That's also the position President Obama has taken. The trick lies in corralling enough Republicans to support a total-package process, as opposed to striking a set of smaller agreements. Carving out skilled immigration might lead to an easy bipartisan win, but it would give ammunition to piecemealers and risk fracturing the Gang of Eight."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/democrat...

> I believe if a bill was introduced to reform the legal immigration process to permit more highly skilled workers to immigrate more easily, neither of the houses (nor the public) would have a problem with it.

I disagree. I think that a lot of politicians would refuse to sign any legislation with the words "permit" and "immigrant" in them. The public at large as misinformed enough that they're probably right to do so, too, if they want to be re-elected.

The original poster did not care about "immigration reform" at large (which in the US is a euphemism for green card / citizenship path for undocumented immigrants), just his/her specific scenario.

Yes, the executive branch got stalled on immigration reform, but it was executive branch's choice to roll all of the issues (illegal immigration per se, illegal immigrants with children legally granted US citizenship status, illegal immigrants who overstayed their temporary worker visa, F1 students with no path to immigration status, H1 temporary workers who faced employment loss, immigrant investor green cards) into one giant overarching "immigration reform".

It certainly did not have to be approached that way, unless someone specifically was looking for a way to get blocked on such omnibus approach and then throw up their hands at "lack of cooperation".