Latinos react to President Barack Obama's decision not to use executive power to tackle immigration reform...
Back in June President Barack Obama announced plans to change deportation policies and look into other changes his office could make immigration policy. While the Senate has passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, the U.S. House has not. The President said in June, “If congress will not do their jobs, at least we can do ours.” He went on to accuse House Republicans of playing politics with the issue of immigration reform but, ironically, the tables turned on the President this past weekend.
On Saturday, the White House announced the President would not take executive action on immigration reform until after the November elections. In the wake of more than 60,000 Central American children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this summer, the President said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the politics had shifted on the issue.
People on both sides of the issue were quick to react calling it both a cynical ploy to protect Democrats in the mid-terms and a betrayal of the U.S. Latino community.
The latter reaction came from the Latino community. I spoke with Jorge Lima, Policy Director at the LIBRE Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that advocates for American Latinos on social and public policy.
Lima says the LIBRE Initiative was not surprised by what he calls the betrayal of the President…
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake added his voice to the criticism of the President as well. He says the president’s delay of immigration reform action until after the November elections is transparently political, making genuine immigration reform more difficult.