Official: Boehner says no immigration vote this year, Obama to pursue executive actions on Amnesty

President Barack Obama speaks while meeting with Chile's President Michelle Bachelet Monday, June 30, 2014, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.AP


President Obama plans to announce a new effort to make unilateral changes to the country's immigration system after Speaker John Boehner told the president the House will not vote on an immigration overhaul this year, a senior White House official said.

The president plans to speak on the issue at 2:50 p.m. ET, from the Rose Garden.
Despite Boehner's threat to file a lawsuit against the president over alleged executive overreach, a senior White House official said Obama will take steps on his own to change immigration policies through executive actions, without congressional approval.

June 30, 2014
FoxNews.com

The official said Obama will first direct the Homeland Security and Justice departments to "move available and appropriate enforcement resources from our interior to the border." Further, 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."

Obama's decision effectively declares that a broad based change in immigration policy is dead for the year, and perhaps for the remainder of his administration. Changing immigration laws and providing a path to citizenship for about 11 million immigrants in the country illegally has been one Obama's top priorities as he sought to conclude his presidency with a major second-term victory.

Meanwhile, the president is still grappling with a surge of illegal immigrant children and families along the border. Earlier in the day, Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders asking for more flexibility on that front, seeking increased powers to send unaccompanied children from Central American back from the U.S. border to the countries they're trying to flee illegally.

Obama also asked for increased penalties for persons who smuggle immigrants who are vulnerable, such as children. The request is part of a broader administration response to what the White House has called a "humanitarian crisis" on the border.

Obama is asking Congress for emergency money that would, among other things, help conduct "an aggressive deterrence strategy focused on the removal and repatriation of recent border crossers." Obama's letter to Boehner, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says the administration is confronting the influx with a coordinated response on both sides of the border.

"This includes fulfilling our legal and moral obligation to make sure we appropriately care for unaccompanied children who are apprehended, while taking aggressive steps to surge resources to our Southwest border to deter both adults and children from this dangerous journey, increase capacity for enforcement and removal proceedings, and quickly return unlawful migrants to their home countries," Obama wrote.

The Border Patrol in South Texas has been overwhelmed for several months by an influx of unaccompanied children and parents traveling with young children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Unlike Mexican immigrants arrested after entering the U.S. illegally, those from Central America cannot be as easily returned to their countries. Obama is seeking authority to act more quickly.

The Border Patrol has apprehended more than 52,000 child immigrants traveling on their own since the start of the 2014 budget year in October.

Immigrant advocacy groups, already frustrated by Obama's lack of executive action to ease record levels of deportations, immediately pounced on the administration's decision.

Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said the influx of children across the border "really requires a humanitarian response, not an increase in deportations."