Inaction on immigration reform in the House is the reason he is pursuing executive action on the issue, President Obama says. Discussing on Face the Nation his interactions with House speaker John Boehner, the president says he told Speaker Boehner, “John, I’m going to give you some time, but if you can’t get it done before the end of the year, I’m going to have to take the steps that I can to improve the system.”
“I presided over a process in which the Senate produced a bipartisan bill,” said President Obama. “I then said to John Boehner, ‘John, let’s get this passed through the House.’ For a year I stood back and let him work on this. He decided not to call the Senate bill, and he couldn’t produce his own bill.”
“I told him at the time, ‘John, if you don’t do it, I’ve got legal authority to make improvements on the system.’ I’d prefer, and still prefer, to see it done through Congress. But every day that I wait we’re misallocating resources, we’re deporting people that shouldn’t be deported, we’re not deporting people who are dangerous and need to be deported,” the president said.
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