President Barack Obama has said he will wait until after November's midterm elections to reform the US immigration system with his executive power, seeking to shield the Democratic Party from losing Senate seats.
The move, announced by a White House official on Saturday and immediately condemned by immigration reform advocates, followed calls by vulnerable Democrats battling for re-election in conservative states for him to avoid action that could energise Republican voters.
The official said, however, that Obama would wield his presidential power before the end of the year to reshape a system that a gridlocked Congress has failed to fix.
Obama's determination to use executive powers to tackle the issue of illegal immigration - and the fates of some of the 11 million undocumented in the country - has already ignited a firestorm, and Republicans argue that his effort would exceed the authority of his office.
"The reality the president has had to weigh is that we're in the midst of the political season," the official said.
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"Because of the Republicans' extreme politicisation 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."
Senate Democrats fighting for survival in states including North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Alaska had made public calls for Obama not to use executive powers to reshape immigration laws.
Reform advocates are furious because the president had previously promised to act before the end of the summer.
"We are bitterly disappointed in the president and we are bitterly disappointed in the Senate Democrats," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice.
"We advocates didn't make the reform promise, we just made the mistake of believing it."
Deepak Bhargava, of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), accused Obama of a "breathtakingly harsh and short-sighted political miscalculation".
