I may be off base here, but President Obama’s executive order to defer action on deportation to roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants is a political masterstroke (whether or not it’s good governance or constitutional is a separate issue).

It’s brilliant because it gives millions of US citizen children with undocumented parents a strong reason to register and vote in 2016. Further it gives the US citizen relatives of undocumented parents a reason to register. It gives resident aliens connected to undocumented parents a reason to apply for citizenship and finally, it gives undocumented people the impetus to knock on doors and make phone calls for Democratic candidates in 2016.

It does this because it’s a temporary reprise from the threat of deportation. The political success of this strategy hinges on the inability of Republicans to act on immigration reform. If Congress can’t pass immigration reform legislation, then the status of 5 million undocumented immigrants hinges on the continuation of an executive branch policy that defers action on their status. This would be a strong motivator for a Democratic presidential candidate to pledge to continue the president’s deferred action policy.

If the strategy relies on Republicans inaction then so far, so good. Mitch McConell wasn’t wrong when he said the president’s action would make immigration reform more difficult to pass in Congress. Case in point, a Quinnipiac University poll that shows Republican support for a “path to citizenship” has fallen precipitously since Obama’s executive action last week.

This Republican disapproval is exactly what the administration needed for this action to work politically. It’s a clever form of political ju-jitzu from President Obama — use the opposition party’s abject hatred for you to drive down Republican support for Congressional action thereby making it impossible for the Republican majority to pass a bill and therefore locking the Democrats in as the “Immigration party.” With a favorable electoral map in 2016, this can only boost the chances of Latinos turning out to vote for Democrats. While it might create counter mobilization on the other sidde, nothing is a powerful a motivator as “go vote, or tia and tio will get deported.