US president Barack Obama said he would take executive action to reform the US immigration system after hopes of passing legislation in Congress officially died.
Republican John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, told Mr Obama last week that his chamber would not vote on immigration reform this year, killing chances that a wide-ranging bill passed by the Senate would become law.
The proposed legislation could provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, including about 50,000 Irish people.
The collapse of the legislative process delivers another in a series of blows to Mr Obama's domestic policy agenda and comes as he struggles to deal with a flood of unaccompanied minors from Central America who have entered the United States.
It also sets up a new battle with congressional Republicans, who accuse Mr Obama of going beyond his legal authority to take executive action on issues such as gay rights and equal pay for women and men.
Mr Obama chided House Republicans for refusing to bring immigration reform to a vote and said only legislation could provide a permanent fix to the problem.
"I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing. And in this situation, the failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security; it's bad for our economy, and it's bad for our future," Mr Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.
“America cannot wait forever for them to act. That’s why today I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.”
The president directed secretary of homeland security Jeh Johnson and attorney general Eric Holder to move enforcement resources from the US interior to the border to promote public safety. He said he asked his team to prepare recommendations on other actions he can take unilaterally by the end of the summer.
Today was another chapter in a long-festering test of wills between Mr Obama and Mr Boehner about the direction the country should go. They have battled over healthcare, deficits, government spending and gun control. Compromises have been rare and could be even more elusive if Republicans increase their majority in the House in November elections and seize control of the Senate.
Mr Boehner inflamed tensions with the White House last week by announcing he was considering a lawsuit charging the president with overstepping his constitutional boundaries with the series of executive actions he has pursued all year.
Tricky time
A Boehner spokesman said the two leaders spoke in person about immigration reform last week.
“Speaker Boehner told the president exactly what he has been telling him: the American people and their elected officials don’t trust him to enforce the law as written,” spokesman Michael Steel said. “Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue.”
Mr Obama has pushed for years for reform that would create a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants within the United States. The US Senate bill had such provisions, but Republicans in the House largely opposed them on the argument that they amounted to amnesty for people who had entered the country illegally.
His shift to executive action comes at a tricky time for the administration. The president sent a letter to Congress today asking for additional resources to deal with the problem of unaccompanied minors entering the country and creating a humanitarian crisis.
Mr Obama repeated today that most of those children would be sent home.
That crisis and the death of reform legislation puts Mr Obama in the awkward position of studying new ways to help the undocumented workers who have been in the country for years while getting tougher on juveniles who are entering now.
Not long ago the White House had held out hope that House Republicans would move on immigration reform this summer before November congressional elections. It delayed a review by the Department of Homeland Security over changes to US deportation policy to give lawmakers space to pursue a legislative solution.
Many members of Congress have predicted that if legislation is not enacted this year, any new attempts would have to wait until 2017 after a new president takes office.
Reuters