Updated

Republicans had it coming. They allowed their House Leadership to be rendered irrelevant by anti-immigration radicals like Steve King of Iowa and Mo Brooks of Alabama. The right-wing herd and its supporting cast of screamers like Matt Drudge and Judicial Watch are indignant because they claim the president won't wait for the legislative process to work; that what Mr. Obama is doing is unconstitutional, imperial and impetuous.

On both counts, that is total horsesh*t.

My only beef is that he is late, but better late than never. And if he waited for the House GOP, we would have waited forever.

— Geraldo Rivera

The GOP has zero intention to do anything on immigration except build higher fences and hire more border guards. They've been busy falsely blaming Latino immigrants for everything from ISIS to Ebola. They would blame them for climate change if they believed in climate change.

Remember when Newt Gingrich had the temerity to suggest that an elderly immigrant, the "abuela" who had been here 20-25 years could maybe, possibly, get a reprieve from deportation? He got run out of the 2012 GOP primaries for being "weak" on immigration.

Even supposedly strong, independent thinkers like Sen. John McCain and Marco Rubio have punked out in the face of the Tea Party's immigration intransigence.

Rep. Brooks told me this week that he wanted to deport all 11 million undocumented. Can you picture that scene? Hardworking parents who have been here for years, with American citizen children, being herded onto to buses and trains to be transported somewhere, dumped anywhere but here? Haven’t we seen this horror movie before? Is that who we are as a nation?

President Obama has the constitutional authority to order those working for him to lay off the law-abiding. Without providing them either federal benefits or a path to citizenship he is at least freeing five million immigrants from the threat of deportation. My only beef is that he is late, but better late than never. And if he waited for the House GOP, we would have waited forever.