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发帖数: 86 | 1 BRISBANE, Australia — Nov 16, 2014, 7:41 AM ET
By JIM AVILA, MARY BRUCE and CHRIS GOOD
Senior National Correspondent
Showing no signs of backing down, President Obama today strongly pushed back
against critics questioning his authority to bypass Congress and act
unilaterally to reform the nation’s immigration system.
“There is a very simple solution to this perception that somehow I'm
exercising too much executive authority: pass a bill I can sign on this
issue,” he said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G20 Summit in
Brisbane, Australia.
If Congress does act, Obama said, “Metaphorically, I'll crumple up whatever
executive actions that we take and we'll toss them in the wastebasket
because we will now have a law that addresses these issues.”
The president said he has received legal advice from his attorney general
about the limits of his executive power to act on immigration, but would not
comment further.
“I will tell them when I make the announcement,” he told ABC News. “Good
try, though.”
Asked about the Republican threat of a government shutdown to block his
executive action, the president was optimistic.
“I take [Senate Republican Leader Mitch] McConnell at his word when he says
that the government isn’t going to shut down," he said. "There’s no
reason for it to shut down. We traveled down that path before. It was bad
for the country. It was bad for every elected official in Washington, and at
the end of the day, it was resolved in the same way it would have been
resolved if we hadn’t shut the government down.”
Is talk of a shutdown affecting the timing of his action on immigration?
“No,” Obama said. “I think the main concern I have is to make sure we get
it right. And that’s what we’re focused on at this point. Because any
executive action I take is going to require some adjustments to how DHS –
the Department of Homeland Security – operates ... I want to make sure that
we’ve crossed all our T’s and dotted all our I’s. That’s my main focus.
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