WASHINGTON – Abandoning his pledge to act by the end of summer, President Barack Obama has decided to delay any executive action on immigration until after the November congressional elections, White House officials said.
The move instantly infuriated immigration advocates while offering relief to some vulnerable Democrats in tough Senate re-election contests.
Two White House officials said Obama concluded that circumventing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s decision before it was announced, said Obama made his decision Friday as he returned to Washington from a NATO summit in Wales.
They said Obama called a few allies from Air Force One to inform them of his decision, and that the president made more calls from the White House on Saturday.
The officials said Obama had no specific timeline to act, but he still would take his executive steps before the end of the year.
In a Rose Garden speech June 30, Obama said he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to give him recommendations for executive action by the end of summer. Obama also pledged to “adopt those recommendations without further delay.”
Obama faced competing pressures from immigration advocacy groups that wanted prompt action and from Democrats worried that acting now would energize Republican opposition against vulnerable Senate Democrats. Among those considered most at risk were Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Hagan of North Carolina.
Obama advisers were not convinced that any presidential action would affect the elections. But the officials said the discussions around timing grew more pronounced within the past few weeks.
Ultimately, the advisers drew a lesson from 1994 when Democratic losses were blamed on votes for gun-control legislation, undermining any interest in passing future gun measures.
White House officials said aides realized that if Obama’s immigration action was deemed responsible for Democratic losses this year, it could hurt any attempt to pass a broad overhaul later on.
Immigration advocates blasted Obama and Senate Democrats over the decision, saying both have shown a lack of political will.
“We are bitterly disappointed in the president, and we are bitterly disappointed in the Senate Democrats,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice. “We advocates didn’t make the reform promise; 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.”
Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream, said the decision was “another slap to the face of the Latino and immigrant community.”
“Where we have demanded leadership and courage from both Democrats and the president, we’ve received nothing but broken promises and a lack of political backbone,” she said.
Republican leaders in Congress criticized the president’s decision as well, for very different reasons.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Obama’s move amounted to “Washington politics at its worst.”
“What’s so cynical about today’s immigration announcement is that the president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law; he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections,” McConnell said. “This is clearly not decision-making designed around the best policy.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a statement on Saturday, said the decision to delay, rather than abandon, the idea of executive action on immigration “smacks of raw politics.”
“Any unilateral action will only further strain the bonds of trust between the White House and the people they are supposed to serve,” Boehner said.
Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.
