President Obama said that his decision to delay executive action on immigration was not due to politics, but to the border crisis dominating immigration discourse in the country.
During an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” that aired on Sunday, new host Chuck Todd asked the president if the delay was due to a political decision to help Democrats keep the Senate.
“Well, that’s not the reason,” Obama responded, explaining that he wants to “get it right.”
“It sounds like politics,” Todd cut in. “It looks like election year politics.”
Obama then added that “the problem with unaccompanied children” conrtibuted to he delay.
“It got a lot of attention,” he said, but added that the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border has now fallen.
He then said he wanted to wait to make sure the American public understood why action on immigration was necessary.
“What I’m saying is that I’m going to act because it’s the right thing for the country. But it’s going to be more sustainable and more effective if the public understands what the facts are on immigration, what we’ve done on unaccompanied children, and why it’s necessary,” Obama said.
“The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem,” he continued. “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.”
Watch the interview via NBC:
We have a thoughtful President who is methodical and will get it right. Since the Congress refuses to work for the country, it will take time for our President to do this. He has to do everything alone after all.
John of Orange calls it “raw politics.” But he would have called taking the action now “raw politics.”
Anyone else tired of RW politicians reading index cards provided by the Koch brothers?
This is a bit of a fig leaf. He’s delaying executive action so that Pryor, Grimes, Nunn, Landrieu et al have a chance.
But I wonder whether the President is missing an opportunity to lay down the gauntlet to pro-reform voters: Get out to vote, flex your muscles, demonstrate to Congress that we need immigration reform.
Perhaps the White House didn’t want to cast attention on the political aspect of this decision. But I hope the national party and Latino groups will leverage it as a GOTV motivator.
Honestly, this is smart politics and it’s the correct choice. Immigration activists need to understand that him taking executive action only feeds the Obama is a dictator meme that floats around right-wing circles, and will only fire them up for the election. He really has no choice. He has an dysfunctional Congress that can’t or won’t do anything, and an opposition party that will howl at the moon over every action he takes, big or small. Best to wait until after the election.
“…I also want to make sure that the public understands why we’re doing this…”
Exactly.
And, as Republicans are so fond of asking, why compromise with people who are wrong?