Going it alone on immigration
President Obama says he will go ahead alone with changes to the immigration system. This announcement is a response to Speaker John Boehner telling him that the House will not vote on the overhaul this year. Obama says:
America cannot wait forever for them to act.
He also says he’s launching a new effort to:
Fix as much of our immigration system as I can, on my own, without Congress.
A senior White House official says Obama will first direct the Homeland Security and Justice departments to “move available and appropriate enforcement resources from our interior to the border.” Additionally, the president has directed a team to “identify additional actions and send recommendations to him by the end of the summer on steps he can take without Congress, but within his existing authorities, to fix as much of our broken immigration system as we can.”