President Barack Obama ordered far-reaching changes to the US immigration system in a highly-anticipated speech on Thursday, effectively protecting nearly five million people from deportation and leaving his Republican opponents fuming.

Obama sought to break a stalemate in America’s long-simmering debate over immigration by cutting out Congress, setting up his biggest confrontation with Republicans since their party swept congressional elections earlier this month.

The reform will protect nearly five million immigrants living illegally in the United States from deportation by granting them work permits; millions more will remain in limbo.

In a televised address on Thursday night, Obama said his executive actions were a “common sense” plan consistent with what previous presidents of both parties had done.

‘Tracking down, rounding up and deporting millions of people isn't realistic,’ says Obama

Stressing that migrants would not get "a free pass to American citizenship" without taking the proper steps, Obama said that "rounding up and deporting millions of people isn't realistic."

Speaking directly to those concerned, Obama said: "You can come out of the shadows; get straight with the law."

He also addressed Republican lawmakers. “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,” he said.

Republicans in a bind

Republicans, who take full control of Congress in January after seizing the Senate from Democrats in the midterm elections earlier this month, warned that Obama would face serious consequences for what they described as an unconstitutional power grab.

“The president will come to regret the chapter history writes if he does move forward,” declared Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican who is soon to become the Senate majority leader, hours before Obama's prime time address.

But outrage may be the only thing that unites Republicans over President Barack Obama’s immigration order.

While their blood boils over the reform, they remain deeply divided over how to stop it.

Lawmakers have raised options including lawsuits, a government shutdown and even impeachment. Party leaders are seeking to avoid a government shutdown, saying such moves could backfire and anger voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election, when they are hoping to win back the White House.

Republicans are in a bind over immigration: the US electorate is rapidly becoming more diverse, especially more Hispanic.

"You won’t see criticism from Republicans of immigration as a whole mainly because Republicans cannot alienate Hispanic voters – they are actually crucial in the next few elections to come," FRANCE 24’s Philip Crowther reported from Washington DC.

Republican leaders have said the party risks its long-term future if it does not act to solve America’s immigration problems. But many in the party’s conservative base oppose any reform that includes a path to citizenship for those who enter the country illegally.

Focus on family

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.

Obama, whose approval ratings have sagged to their lowest point in recent months, planned to sign a pair of presidential memorandums on Friday and travel to Las Vegas for an immigration rally as he appeals for support.

Obama has been weighing potential executive actions since early summer.

Administration officials said the measures were aimed at keeping families together and prioritising the deportation of serious criminals and people who recently crossed the border, not those who have spent years in the United States.

The president’s broadest decree will apply to about 4.1 million parents who are in the country illegally but whose children are US citizens or permanent residents. If the parents have been in the US for at least five years, they can apply for protection from deportation and then for work permits, according to people briefed in advance on the president’s actions.

‘Living in the shadows means losing your identity little by little’

Obama was also expected to broaden a 2012 directive that deferred deportation for some young immigrants who entered the US illegally. Obama will expand eligibility to people who arrived in the US as minors before 2010, instead of the current cutoff of 2007, and will lift the requirement that applicants be under 31 to be eligible. The expansion is expected to affect about 300,000 people.

Despite the sweeping scope of the president’s actions, more than half of the 11 million immigrants living in the US illegally will be granted no specific protections. However, Obama’s orders aim to decrease the likelihood that many of them will be deported by ordering the Department of Homeland Security to focus its enforcement on those who have criminal histories or who recently crossed the border.

Acting alone

The president’s decision to act on his own follows months of partisan rancor in Washington over more comprehensive legislation. While the Senate passed a bill last year that would have allowed nearly everyone in the US illegally to pursue a pathway to citizenship, the Republican-led House of Representatives never took up the measure.

Now that Obama is acting on his own, some on the right are pushing to use must-pass spending legislation to try to stop Obama’s effort. One lawmaker has raised the spectre of impeachment.

Some immigrant advocates, meanwhile, worry that even though Obama’s actions make millions eligible for work permits, not all would participate out of fear that Republicans or a new president would reverse the executive orders.

(FRANCE 24)