President Obama claimed in an interview Saturday that he did not delay long-awaited executive action on immigration reform to protect Senate Democrats, saying that the border crisis made him recalculate when to unveil his blueprint.
“That’s not the reason,” Obama told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked if he pushed back his timeline on immigration merely to appease Senate Democrats.
“The truth of the matter is — is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem,” Obama added in excerpts of the interview released late Saturday. “I want to spend some time, even as we’re getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action, I also want to make sure that 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.”
Tens of thousands of young immigrants, mostly from Central America, illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months. Republicans say the episode proved the Obama administration had not done enough to secure the border.
Earlier Saturday, White House officials revealed that the president would not move unilaterally on immigration until after the November midterms. For weeks, the White House had been signaling that the president would act by the end of summer.
Supporters of immigration reform, however, are accusing the president of putting Democrats’ political fortunes ahead of his principles.
But Obama insisted Saturday that more deliberation was needed to ensure the public understood the consequences of his executive action.
“It’s going to be more sustainable and more effective,” the president said of the delay, “if the public understands what the facts are on immigration, what we’ve done on unaccompanied children and why it’s necessary.”
