Obama said to waver on aliens

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from nervous Democratic Senate candidates in tight races, President Barack Obama is rethinking the timing of his pledge to act on his own to reshape the nation's immigration system by summer's end and could instead delay some or all of his most contentious proposals until after the midterm elections in November, according to people familiar with White House deliberations.

The president vowed in late June to act unilaterally out of frustration with what he termed Republican obstruction and said he would announce a decision soon after receiving recommendations from top aides at the end of the summer.

But now Obama and his aides appear to be backing away from a firm commitment to that timing. In remarks to reporters Thursday, Obama hinted at the possibility of a delay.

"Some of these things do affect time lines, and we're just going to be working through as systematically as possible in order to get this done," Obama said. "But have no doubt, in the absence of congressional action, I'm going to do what I can to make sure the system works better."

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Friday that the president was "as determined as ever to take that kind of action on his own." But he and other White House officials declined to repeat the president's earlier pledge of an announcement by the end of this summer, or to say whether the president was considering delaying some of his decisions until later this year.

Inside the White House, the timing of an announcement has become a subject of debate.

Some of Obama's advisers are urging him to postpone it, fearful of the political ramifications of a sweeping action to protect millions of illegal aliens from deportation and provide many of them official work papers. Such a move by the president, some senior officials worry, could set off a pitched fight with Republicans and dash hopes for Democrats running in conservative states.

Democratic control of the Senate hinges on the outcomes of about a half-dozen close races in states where Obama is not popular, and strategists fear that an immigration announcement could complicate Democratic efforts to prevail in those states, including several races in states Obama lost in both 2008 and 2012.

But others inside the White House are pushing the president to stick to his promised schedule regardless of the immediate political consequences. They argue that Republicans will criticize the president and attack Democratic candidates even if Obama delays parts of his announcement until after the election.

And some argue that possible Republican reactions -- such as calls for impeachment of the president or a move to shut down the government -- could benefit Democrats politically by creating a backlash against Republicans among voters.

Top White House aides say the president is eager to do as much as possible to shift immigration enforcement toward dangerous criminals and repeat border crossers and away from families who have lived without legal status in the United States for years.

"We very much want to do an executive action," a senior White House adviser said. "It's something we want to do."

The president is under immense pressure from immigration activists and many members of his own party in Congress, who have publicly and privately demanded Obama allow millions of illegal aliens who are otherwise law-abiding to emerge from the shadows by lifting the threat of arrest and deportation and granting them work permits.

The push took on added urgency after Speaker John Boehner conceded this summer that congressional efforts to overhaul the immigration system had failed.

At the same time, the president's repeated efforts to go around a gridlocked Congress have already prompted a Republican lawsuit alleging that he has abused the executive powers of his office.

A Section on 08/30/2014

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