During his post-election press conference Wednesday, President Obama hinted at signing his much-discussed executive action to legalize millions of illegal immigrants. The president had planned on signing an executive action prior to Tuesday’s elections, but decided to wait until afterwards because of the influx of immigrants over the summer and supposedly not politics.
Later in the press conference, Obama told Jeff Mason of Reuters that plenty of details regarding a potential on executive action would be made available “when I announce that executive action on immigration,” omitting the term “if.”
President Obama: This country’s made real progress since the crisis six years ago. The fact is, more Americans are working. Unemployment has come down. More Americans have health insurance. Manufacturing has grown. Our deficits have shrunk. Our dependence on foreign oil is down, as are gas prices. Our graduation rates are up. Our businesses aren’t just creating jobs at the fastest pace since the 1990s, our economy is outpacing most of the world. But we just got to keep at it until every American feels the gains of a growing economy where it matters most, and that’s in their own lives. Obviously, much of that will take action from Congress and I’m eager to work with the new Congress to make the next two years as productive as possible. I am committed to making sure that I measure ideas not by whether they are from Democrats or Republicans, but whether they work for the American people. and that’s not to say that we won’t disagree over some issues that we’re passionate about. We will. Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign. I’m pretty sure I’ll take some actions some in Congress will not like. That’s natural. That’s how our democracy works. But we can find ways to work together on issues where there’s broad agreement among the American people.