Activists infuriated as White House officials say Obama to delay immigration action

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration advocates are blasting President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats over the decision to delay any action on immigration until after the November congressional elections.

Two White House officials say the president has concluded that circumventing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul.

But in a Rose Garden speech on June 30, Obama said he had directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to give him recommendations for executive action by the end of summer and pledged to “adopt those recommendations without further delay.”

Frank Sharry of America’s Voice says his group is “bitterly disappointed,” accusing the president and Senate Democrats of choosing “politics over people.”

Cristina Jimenez of United We Dream calls the decision “another slap to the face of the Latino and immigrant community” and another in a string of “broken promises.”

%@AP Links

123-v-28-(David Melendy, AP correspondent)–Immigration policy will take a back seat to politics, at least until after the November congressional elections. AP correspondent David Melendy reports. (6 Sep 2014)

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124-c-21-(David Melendy, AP correspondent)-“of the year”-AP correspondent David Melendy reports that the president hopes to avoid hurting his chances for a broader immigration overhaul. (6 Sep 2014)

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APPHOTO WX501: FILE – In this June 30, 2014, file photo President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, pauses while making an announcement about immigration reform in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Then the president said he was done waiting for House Republicans to act on immigration, and that he planned to act on his own via executive action. According to White House officials Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, Obama has decided to delay any executive action on immigration until after the November congressional elections. The two officials said Obama decided Friday as he returned to Washington from a NATO summit in Wales that circumventing Congress with executive actions on immigration during the midterm campaign would politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul of the immigration system. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (30 Jun 2014)

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