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(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said neither a judge’s ruling nor a standoff with Congress that threatens to shut down the Homeland Security Department would derail his plan to ease deportations of undocumented immigrants. “Part of the message that I’m sending is if you qualified for the executive action that I put forward, we’re still going to make sure that your mom is not prioritized” for deportation,’’ Obama told the audience at a town hall Wednesday in Miami hosted by Telmundo and MSNBC. Obama is trying to enlist Hispanic voters to keep up pressure on congressional Republicans who are trying to block his moves on immigration by holding up Homeland Security funding. He spoke at Florida International University as the House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, are at a standoff over how to proceed on agency funding before it runs out on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has proposed decoupling the funding bill from a measure on immigration, which has backing from Democrats. House Speaker John Boehner hasn’t signed off on the two-step approach. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, met Wednesday afternoon without announcing any breakthrough. Obama repeated his vow to veto any legislation that would impede his action to ease deportations and provide work permits to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Order Appealed

The administration also is battling in the courts, appealing an order by a federal judge in Texas that temporarily blocked part of Obama’s plan to expand a 2012 program that would let some immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to apply for work permits. He told the audience of 268 people that those who would be eligible should continue gathering paperwork “so that as soon as the legal process has worked its way through, we can move forward.” Obama said he expected the immigration issue will continue reverberating into the 2016 campaign for president, though he hasn’t given up getting a new law passed before he leaves office. Asked about Jeb Bush, a potential Republican presidential candidate who has a long record of supporting immigration law changes, Obama said he should talk to members of his party in Congress and blamed Boehner for blocking legislation passed by the Senate to change U.S. immigration law.

Deferred Action

In the audience at the town hall were several undocumented immigrants, including young people who benefited from the president’s 2012 executive action deferring deportations for those brought to the U.S. illegally as children. More than 675,000 undocumented immigrants have received deferred status and work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Cesar Vargas, a 30-year-old New Yorker who received temporary legal status under the 2012 program, traveled to Miami with hopes of telling the president to press forward with more executive actions despite Republican opposition. Vargas, who came to the U.S. at the age of five from Mexico and recently graduated from law school, said the town hall would be an opportunity for Obama to hear from people who benefited from the previous actions and “from those who were left behind.” Obama announced executive actions in November, expanding the deferred-action program and directing the Homeland Security Department to focus deportation efforts on people with felony convictions.

On Hold

The expansion was put on hold after the Feb. 16 ruling by the Texas judge. The order came in a lawsuit filed by Texas, Florida and 24 other states claiming the president’s actions create a financial burden for local governments. The administration’s deportation priorities weren’t affected.
Obama’s 2012 and 2014 executive actions could provide temporary legal status to about 48,000 undocumented workers in Miami-Dade County and “bring these immigrants into the formal economy,” according to a Feb. 23 report by the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Across Florida, about 250,000 of the state’s 630,000 undocumented immigrants could receive protected status under the president’s actions easing deportations, the report found.

Economic Impact

The White House has argued that easing deportations will boost the economy and reduce the federal deficit. “The administrative actions taken as a whole would raise the level of U.S. GDP by 0.5 percent after 10 years,” Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters Tuesday. “It would have no impact on the likelihood of employment or U.S.-born workers.”
Republicans seeking to overturn Obama’s executive actions have said the president illegally bypassed Congress to change U.S. immigration policy. Some have referenced the Feb. 16 ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas to bolster their position. “Judge Hanen’s ruling reinforces what I and many others have been saying for a long time now,” Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said on the Senate floor Tuesday during debate over funding the Homeland Security Department. “The president acted outside of the law when he went around Congress to unilaterally change our nation’s immigration laws.” Upon arriving in Miami, Obama was greeted by Florida Governor Rick Scott and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, both Republicans. More than half of the county’s 2.6 million residents were born outside the U.S., according to the Census Bureau.

To contact the reporter on this story: Toluse Olorunnipa in Miami at tolorunnipa@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net Justin Blum