The Obama administration sent immigration talking points to activists Monday night, providing a window into the message they want to hammer and once again suggesting that long-awaited administrative actions could come very soon.
The talking points, sent out by an administration official and shared with BuzzFeed News, begin by saying that the immigration system is broken and millions of undocumented immigrants who live in the shadows "want to play by the rules and pay taxes" but have no way to get right by the law.
Every president since Eisenhower has enacted immigration actions on through executive order, the talking points say, with specific examples including Ronald Reagan providing relief to 200,000 Nicaraguans and George H.W. Bush expanding the Family Fairness program to cover more than 1.5 million undocumented spouses and children.
"This represented 40% of the undocumented population of roughly 3.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country at the time," the talking points say.
According to reports, President Obama is set to protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, who make up 43% of the roughly 11.5 million population.
The American Immigration Council shared that information Tuesday morning.
The talking points go on to say Obama is consulting with lawyers and is confident that everything he enacts will be legal.
They also take on the idea that Obama is being a lawless and imperial president by acting administratively.
"The facts don't bear out the notion that President Obama has issued an unprecedented number of executive orders," they read. "In fact, the president has issued executive orders at the slowest rate in more than 100 years."
They conclude by saying that there is a simple solution for Republicans who feel Obama is overreaching: Pass legislation and he will sign it, the talking points say, "superseding the actions he's taken on his own to fix as much of the system as he can."