After immigration delay, Obama has little reason not to go big

When he decided to delay until after November his unilateral plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, he brushed aside the biggest obstacle to testing the limits of his constitutional authority: protecting embattled Senate Democrats.

Aside from Republican disdain, the president now has little reason left to avoid the type of sweeping executive action long demanded by his progressive base.

Some had wondered whether the president would go small initially and save the far-reaching changes for a more politically convenient time.

Even immigration reform supporters — despite their anger — say expectations have only grown since the White House pushed back its timeline. They expect the president to hold nothing back when he eventually acts.

“There’s no reason not to go big,” said Sylvia Manzano, a principal at Latino Decisions, which analyzes Hispanic political opinion.

In addition to removing the midterms from the equation, Obama now has to ensure his blueprint is expansive enough to appease supporters who are livid with a delay they contend was motivated purely by politics.

“From the perspective of Latino voters, I think their perception is that he’s promised time and again and hasn’t delivered,” Manzano said. “What’s so peculiar is that this is a dilemma of his own making. He’s the one who had the timetable. To do all of that, and then pull the carpet from under them — again — that is the bigger problem.”

The White House made clear Monday that the president was not reconsidering whether to pursue executive action but just pushing back the timing of his announcement.

For weeks, the White House said Obama would release his plan by the end of summer, stoking expectations among friends and foes alike.

Senior administration officials are framing the move as a way to ensure that the policy doesn’t get overwhelmed by the politics, but they are having a hard time making the case that a political component wasn’t involved in their decision making.

Obama claimed in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he wanted the public to better understand the need for executive action on immigration reform. The president also blamed the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border for creating the impression that the homeland wasn’t secure.

What the White House couldn’t answer the next day however, is why the president needed until the end of the year to explain the details of a plan that has been debated extensively.

Supporters of executive action remain unmoved by the president’s explanations.

“We’re talking about 60,000 additional people who could potentially be deported, the urgency is very clear,” said Andrea Mercado, campaign director at the National Domestic Worker Alliance. “This is a major disappointment, and frankly, it feels like a deception by the president.”

Obama is weighing whether to defer millions of deportations, as he did with Dream Act-eligible immigrants. He is also expected to overhaul how green cards and work visas are awarded.

The president will make a play for the history books without the albatross of an election hanging over his efforts. As such, even conservatives say it’s inevitable the president will take executive action affecting as many as five million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

“The only reason to have a more limited approach was the election,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. “After November, you don’t have that pressure. I think his decision has already been made.

For many in the Hispanic community, he’s gone from ‘deporter in chief’ to ‘liar in chief,’” Aguilar added. “He’s going to try to fix that.”