Republican leaders immediately sought to keep the issue of Obama’s pending executive action alive in elections in which all of the House and a third of the Senate seats are up for grabs.
“What’s so cynical about today’s immigration announcement is that the president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law — he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections,” said Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.
House Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s motives smacked of “raw politics.”
Reform advocates were furious because the president had previously promised to act before the end of the summer.
“We are bitterly disappointed in the president and we are bitterly disappointed in the Senate Democrats,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice.
“We advocates didn’t make the reform promise, we just made the mistake of believing it.”
Deepak Bhargava, of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), accused Obama of a “breathtakingly harsh and short-sighted political miscalculation.”
“This delay will have tragic consequences for the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who will be ripped from one another’s arms in the coming weeks and months,” he said.
Erika Andiola of the DREAM Action Coalition charged that Obama had solidified his “Deporter-in-Chief” legacy.
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