Obama spells out objectives on immigration, but not timing

WASHINGTON – Leaving his timing uncertain, President Barack Obama laid out ambitious objectives Friday for immigration steps he intends to take on his own and said he already had received some recommendations from the Homeland Security and Justice departments for executive action he could implement without Congress.

Facing competing pressures from immigration advocacy groups and from Democrats nervous about November’s midterm election, Obama made no commitment about whether he would act in the coming weeks as he had earlier pledged.

“My expectation is that fairly soon, I’ll be considering what the next steps are,” he said during a news conference in Wales at the end of a NATO summit.

Still, Obama spelled out his goals with a degree of specificity that he had previously not detailed.

He said that without congressional action to overhaul the immigration system, he would take steps to increase border security, to upgrade the processing of border crossers, to encourage legal immigration and to give immigrants who have been illegally in the United States for some time a path to become legal residents, pay taxes, pay a fine and learn English.

“I want to be very clear: My intention is, in the absence of … action by Congress, I’m going to do what I can do within the legal constraints of my office, because it’s the right thing to do for the country,” he said.

Legal experts and lawmakers have debated the extent of Obama’s authority, and Holder’s and Johnson’s recommendations remain closely held. It’s also unclear how far Obama could go without congressional approval in meeting the goals he delineated Friday.

In 2012, Obama authorized the Homeland Security Department to consider applications to defer deportations for immigrants who had entered the country illegally as children and to give them work permits. Since then, the program has deferred the deportation of more than 580,000 immigrants.

Immigrant advocates say Obama has the authority to allow similar deferrals to potentially millions of other immigrants, beginning with the parents of those young immigrants whose deportations already have been deferred.