WASHINGTON — The Republican takeover of Congress may have shaken up Washington, but it has left President Obama in the same position on immigration: squeezed between angry congressional Republicans and even angrier immigration advocates.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged the president to hold off on a long-promised executive action that would legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., one of the strongest Republican proponents of an immigration bill that would grant legal status to undocumented immigrants, said such a move by the president would be the equivalent of “pulling the pin off a hand grenade and tossing it into the middle of the room.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the co-authors of a bipartisan bill passed by the Senate last year, said it would “poison the well,” a phrase repeated by other GOP leaders.
Immigration advocates say they’ve heard that song before.
“That well hasn’t had water for a long time,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
Immigration groups are responding in full force. Hundreds of undocumented immigrants are likely to rally outside the White House on Friday, followed by protests, marches and hunger strikes in the weeks to come. They were already fuming over Obama’s decision to postpone his executive action after setting a summer deadline, and they say they won’t let him get away with missing his latest promise to act before the end of the year.