President Barack Obama admitted on Sunday "there are certain things I cannot do" with executive action on immigration,
Breitbart.com reports.
Obama has promised to sign an executive order granting legal status to up to 5 million illegal immigrants by year's end since Congress has not enacted comprehensive immigration legislation. But in February 2013 he told a Google Hangout, "The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed."
The same year, he told a pro-amnesty heckler he didn't have the power to grant legal status to every illegal immigrant.
"The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws," Obama told the heckler. "If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, I would do so."
Obama was asked at a G20 press conference in Australia on Sunday why he has changed his stance since then.
He responded that he hasn't.
He was being asked in 2013 to enact the "Gang of Eight" bill that passed the Senate but died in the past, Obama said. That, he argues, he didn't have the power to do through executive action.
"Getting a comprehensive deal of the sort that is in the Senate legislation, for example, does extend beyond my legal authorities," he said Sunday.
"There are certain things I cannot do" on immigration and "certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing immigration laws," he said, Breitbart reports.
Obama was asked whether he has been given legal advice on the limits of his executive power. He said that he has, but said would not reveal what he was told until he makes his executive order announcement, Breitbart reported.
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