Politico
By Jennifer Epstein
August 28, 2014
President
Barack Obama still intends to take executive actions on immigration, he
said Thursday, at the tail end of a summer in which his administration
has been reviewing
options for moves he can take on his own.
“If
I can’t see congressional action, I have to do at least what I can,” he
told reporters at the White House. “Have no doubt: In the absence of
congressional action,
I’m going to do what I can to make sure the system works better.”
Obama noted the White House has had “a lot of stakeholder discussions.”
Among
them are with big business leaders such as representatives for high
tech, agriculture and construction interests, who have put forward a
range of suggested fixes,
from recapturing unused green cards to tweaking existing work
authorization programs.
But
the biggest ask from immigration-reform advocates is halting
deportations for millions of immigrants living here legally and granting
them work authorization — similar
to the reprieve given to more than 580,000 young undocumented
immigrations under a 2012 Obama administration directive.
Earlier
Thursday, 145 immigration-reform activists were arrested outside the
White House for blocking the streets as they called on Obama to grant
broad relief from deportations
for undocumented immigrants.
On
Thursday, Obama did little to hint at what specific policy changes will
result from his review, which is being led by Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson and was
formally launched in March. Nor did he give a firm timeline of when
those actions will be announced — a topic of much speculation among
immigration-reform advocates.
Still,
Obama did hint that he still holds out some hope for congressional
action. “Hope springs eternal that after the midterms, Congress will
act,” ?he said.
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