WASHINGTON (AP/WMOT) — Immigration advocates across the country and here in Tennessee are blasting President Barack Obama over his decision to delay action on immigration until after the November elections.
Two White House officials say the president is concerned that bypassing Congress through executive actions on immigration during the campaign will politicize the issue and hurt future efforts to pass a broad overhaul.
Eben Cathey with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition says the president is acting out of what he called “irrational political fear.”
“There are families in Tennessee, in Kentucky, all across the Southeast, who are victims of an immigration system that doesn’t work. Every day that the president waits to grant relief to immigrant families is a day that someone could lose a family member to deportation."
Cathey says TIRRC would like to see the president use his executive authority to grant deportation relief to families as he did in 2012 for undocumented children.