White House Chief of staff Denis McDonough promised Latino lawmakers Thursday that President Obama will take unilateral action on immigration reform by the end of the year, according to the Associated Press.
In a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill with Congressional Hispanic Caucus members, according to the AP, McDonough reportedly heard lawmakers concerns about the recent delay and said that regardless of the outcome of the November elections, Obama would act.
The renewed commitment comes on the heels of a decision from the White House to delay taking executive actions on immigration amid concerns that the political fallout could be detrimental to Democratic candidates facing tough elections.
“We told him we were mad, we thought for sure he was going to act because he said he would, we’re very upset about that,” Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif, said according to the AP report. “At the same time we got the promise that he’s going to act as generously as he possibly can before the end of the holiday season.”
McDonough left the meeting telling reporters that the president will act before the end of the year.
“It was good to catch up with the caucus and underscore to them our continuing commitment to resolve the challenges with our broken immigration system and underscore to them that the president will act on this before the end of the year” he said.
According to the report, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) pressed the White House to elaborate on how far Obama would go and that McDonough said it be as far as legally possible.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said that the action will be one “of significant scope.”
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