Obama defends decision to delay immigration measures

By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama said Saturday that the rise in the number of immigrant children entering the United States illegally has changed immigration policy and prompted him to postpone his promise to use executive action to protect millions of people from deportation.

Immigration reform advocates criticized Obama after White House officials said the president would not act at the end of the summer as promised in June, but would address the issue after the midterm elections in November. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama rejected the charge that the delay was to protect Democratic candidates who feared his actions could hurt their prospects in the tough Senate races.

By Obama’s own calculations, political considerations certainly played a role in his decision. In his speech to NBC, which was scheduled to air on Sunday, he said that a partisan dispute in July over how to deal with the influx of unaccompanied minors at the border had created the impression that there was an immigration crisis and thus an unstable climate for the measures he had promised.

“The truth is that the policy changed in mid-summer because of this issue,” he said. “I want to take some time while we get everything ready for the executive action. I also want to make sure the public understands why we’re doing this, why it’s the right thing for the American people, why it’s the right thing for the American economy.”

The passion behind the deportation threat is reflected in the fact that immigration groups that had criticized Republicans for their failure to pass immigration reform immediately turned their anger on Obama.

Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, said the decision was “another slap in the face to the Latino and immigrant community.”

“Where we have demanded leadership and courage from Democrats and the president, we have received nothing but broken promises and a lack of political backbone,” she said.

“We are bitterly disappointed in the president and we are bitterly disappointed in Senate Democrats,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice. “We advocates did not make the promise of reform; we just made the mistake of believing it. The president and Senate Democrats have chosen politics over people, the status quo over solving real problems.”

Two White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they could not be named, said Obama did not make the decision to wait until he returned to Washington on Friday from a NATO summit in Wales. He called some allies from Air Force One to inform them of his decision, the officials said, and made more phone calls from the White House on Saturday.

Obama took to the White House Rose Garden on June 30 to angrily declare that House Speaker John Boehner had informed him that the Republican-controlled House would not take action on immigration reform. For that reason, he said, he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to submit recommendations for executive action to him by the end of the summer. Obama also promised to “implement those recommendations without further delay.”

With the delay, the White House was weighing whether to act now and risk having immigration blamed for any Democratic losses, particularly in the Senate, where the Democratic majority is at stake. Among those most at risk were Democratic Senators Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

Obama’s advisers were not convinced that a presidential decision would affect the election, but discussions about the timing had become louder in recent weeks, they said.

Ultimately, the advisers learned a lesson from 1994, when Democrats blamed their defeats on votes on gun control laws, thereby undermining any interest in passing future gun laws.

White House officials said their aides were aware that blaming Obama’s immigration policies for Democrats’ losses this year could hurt any subsequent attempt at comprehensive reform.

Republican congressional leaders criticized the president, calling his decision a cynical ploy.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obama’s actions amounted to “Washington politics at its worst.”

“The cynical thing about today’s announcement on immigration is that the president is not saying he will follow the law, he is just saying he will circumvent the law when it is too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November election,” McConnell said. “This is clearly not decision-making focused on the best policy.”

Republican President Boehner of Ohio said in a statement on Saturday that the decision not to abandon the idea of ​​executive action on immigration but to postpone it “smacks of pure politics.”

“Any unilateral action would only further strain the relationship of trust between the White House and the people it is supposed to serve,” Boehner said.

Recently, partisan wrangling has erupted over how to handle the growing influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America at the U.S. border with Mexico. Officials said the White House did not foresee such a fight when Obama made his pledge in June.

Since then, the number of minors caught crossing the Mexican border into the United States illegally alone has declined. That decline, and the absence of Congress in Washington in August, have diverted attention from the border for now.

Nevertheless, the dispute over how to deal with the influx of cross-border commuters from Central America threatens to spill over into the larger debate about immigration and the fate of the 11 million immigrants to the United States who either entered the country illegally or whose visas have expired and who have already been in the country for some time.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a sweeping immigration reform bill last year that strengthened border security, increased the number of visas for legal immigrants and provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives shied away from taking comprehensive action.

During a press conference in Wales on Friday, Obama reiterated his determination to act on his own initiative, although he declined to commit to a timetable and outlined ambitious goals for his actions.

Obama said he would take action without legislative initiatives from Congress to increase border security, improve border-crossing processing and encourage legal immigration. He also said he would offer immigrants who have been in the United States illegally for some time the opportunity to become legal residents, pay taxes, pay a fine and learn English.

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Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

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