A private meeting between White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to talk immigration was described by those in attendance as tense at best, with one lawmaker calling it an outright venting session.
The meet was aimed at quelling fears from the pro-amnesty base of Democratic voters that President Obama wasn’t putting an end to his plans to reform immigration laws — just delaying them. Mr. McDonough vowed to those at the closed-door meeting that Mr. Obama was going to take executive action on the matter before the end of the holiday season, Politico reported.
Hispanic Caucus members, especially, want that vow to hold true.
“[There was] serious venting” at the meeting, said Rep. Raul Grijalva, who attended the get-together, Politico reported. “As I told the chief, I said I for one need constant reassurance. I don’t want to go down this path come November and then for some other reason find that the immigrant community and the Latino community get thrown in the heap again.”
Mr. McDonough said Mr. Obama would act by himself on immigration, no matter the outcome of the November elections, Politico reported.
“The president understands the depth of the broken immigration system that we have, and he’s bound and determined to make sure that we fix it because it’s impacting our economy, it’s impacting our job growth and it’s a humanitarian issue that’s impacting families across the country,” Mr. McDonough said in a followup with reporters, Politico reported. “So we’re going to fix it, and we’ll do it before the end of the year.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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