Obama defends US immigration plan
President Barack Obama defended his decision to bypass Congress and overhaul US immigration policy on his own on Friday, saying he was forced to act because House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner would not let legislation come to a vote.
With many Americans skeptical of his decision to bypass Congress and impose an immigration overhaul unilaterally, Obama attempted to rally support for his move in a speech at a Las Vegas high school, saying illegal immigrants need a chance to come out of the shadows.
He engaged in a cross-country debate with Boehner, the top US Republican, who accused Obama in Washington of sabotaging chances for bipartisan legislation and vowed to lead a fight to block his executive actions.
In the summer of 2013, the Democratic-run Senate passed compromise immigration legislation but the bill died in the Republican-controlled House. Obama said he waited to see if the House would ever pass the legislation, but Boehner would not let it come to a vote.
"I told John Boehner, 'I'll wash your car, walk your dog, whatever you need to do, just call the bill," Obama said. "And he didn't do it."
To those lawmakers who feel he overstepped his constitutional authority, Obama said his message to them is: "Pass the bill."
Obama's move threatens to herald a new round of partisan gridlock in Washington as Republicans who will control both chambers of Congress in January react with scorn to his decision.
Republicans remain split on the best course of resistance to Obama's action easing the threat of deportation for some 4.7 million undocumented immigrants. Conservative groups were already pulling together legal strategies to challenge it.
"With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek. And as I told the president yesterday, he's damaging the presidency itself," Boehner told reporters.
Obama received a rousing welcome from a largely Latino audience at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, the same place he visited just after beginning his second term in 2013, when he laid out his principles for immigration reform.
"Si se puede," they chanted.
Before getting off Air Force One shortly after landing in Las Vegas, Obama signed two presidential memoranda to set in motion part of the biggest US immigration changes in a decade.
Just hours after his speech on Thursday night, Republicans launched a long-threatened lawsuit against the administration on another topic, accusing it of abusing executive authority through implementation of the president's "Obamacare" health reform law.
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