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President Obama’s announcement over the weekend that he was delaying taking executive action on immigration, sent shock waves through immigrant rights groups. The President revealed his decision in the middle of an NBC interview on Meet the Press, leaving a lot of people scratching their heads. Obama had promised on June 30th to take action in the summer, raising the hopes of those who are ineligible for the earlier Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program because of age or other factors. The President apparently intends to make an announcement until after this November’s midterm elections and before the end of the year.

A White House spokesman explained the decision this way: “The reality the president has had to weigh is that we’re in the midst of the political season and, because of the Republicans’ extreme politicization of this issue, the president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce administrative action before the elections.”

Obama had already faced massive opposition from Republicans who questioned the constitutionality of his executive actions. It is likely that the fears of Democrats losing control of the Senate that drove the decision, given that the mid-term elections usually draw a whiter, older, more conservative electorate. But some Democratic lawmakers, like Luis Gutierrez and Tony Cardenas publicly lambasted Obama for playing politics at the expense of immigration reform.

GUEST: Maegan Ortiz, independent journalist and organizer based in Los Angeles. She writes for a number of publications including VivirLatino where her latest article was entitled, “Why $3.7 Billion is Not Humanitarianism for Unaccompanied Minors at the Border.”