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FILE - In this June 30, 2014, file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, pauses while making a statement about immigration reform, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Obama over time has been embraced and scorned by immigrant advocates who have viewed him as both a champion and an obstacle to their cause. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) There were about 30, all Mexican nationals desperate to avoid deportations that would separate them from their families. Living in Illinois, they appealed for help from their new U.S. senator, Barack Obama.

He turned them down.

It was one of the first times Obama could have used the power of his office to help defer the removal of immigrants who were in the United States illegally. Eight years later, with his powers magnified as president, such a decision is upon him again, this time with the status of millions of immigrants at stake.

That episode in 2006 represents just one early marker in Obama's complicated history with the politics of immigration. The son of a Kenyan immigrant, Obama has been embraced and scorned by immigrant advocates who have viewed him as both a champion and an obstacle to their cause.

Now, perhaps paradoxically, in their anger over his delay of executive actions that potentially could give work permits to millions of immigrants living illegally in this country, these advocacy groups also hold out hope that when Obama does act, he will be aggressive and leave a mark for posterity.

"Some of the hard feelings could be forgotten at the end of the day if he acts boldly," said Janet Murguia, the president of the National Council of La Raza, a leading Latino advocacy group.

Obama's record on immigration, however, is one of caution and deliberation punctuated by moments of determination amid some broken promises. With the president delaying executive action until after the November congressional elections, some Democrats worry that expectations have been raised beyond what he can deliver.

"If they weren't sky high before, they are now," said Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I'm not convinced they will meet the expectations of the Hispanic community."

White House officials say the delay will not affect the scope of what Obama intends to do. And they play down suggestions he is looking to build his legacy with the decision.

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Obama has built a complicated immigration record

Vice President Joe Biden challenged Republicans to see the Lord or the lightning in regard to immigration reform during a speech he made at a reception for Hispanic Heritage month.

Im not offering any false hope about what theyll do between now and the election, but I can tell you, when this election [is] over in the lame-duck session, they may see the Lord. It is possible. But if they dont, they will see some lightning, Biden said on Monday at the fifth Hispanic Heritage month reception, according to White House press pool reports.

Biden spoke to a crowd of leading members, advocates and educators from the Hispanic American community focused on education within Hispanic communities, according to the pool report. The event was hosted at the Bidens Naval Observatory residence in Washington.

Biden promised the audience that if Congress does not act on passing immigration reform, President Barack Obama would take an awful lot of actions to address the situation. In doing so, he warned Republicans that if the party could not act on immigration reform, it would face extinction.

I know youre all waiting and youre frustrated, Biden said. Watch when this election is over, watch what happens when all of a sudden our friends in the other team realize their prospects for future electoral success hinge upon acting rationally.

He continued, They will either act rationally, or we will act for them, and if we have to act for them, they will not be around a whole long longer to act in large numbers.

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Biden: GOP to see 'Lord' or lightning

Former Mexican President Felipe Caldern Speaks Immigration Reform
Spineless: Pres. Obama Dems Disappoint, Again -- Punt on Immigration Until After 2014 Elections: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Spin...

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Former Mexican President Felipe Caldern Speaks Immigration Reform - Video

President Obamas zigs and zags in pursuit of immigration reform are a long-unfolding narrative now assuming epic dimensions. In the latest installment, Obama has postponed the unilateral reforms he promised to have unveiled by now. He did so not for any high-minded purpose but rather to avoid dealing mortal blows to the re-election of a handful of Democratic senators who begged the president to hold off.

Thus has subverting immigration reform become a bipartisan project advanced by Republicans, who despise the idea of putting millions of Hispanics on a path to citizenship, and by Democrats, who like it but fear the political fallout.

Obama insists that congressional inaction justifies his determination to take matters into his own hands and refashion enforcement of the nations laws to his liking. In his view, executive action is warranted by legislative paralysis; he alone will determine (though not quite yet) the breadth and depth of changes that could affect the status of millions of undocumented immigrants.

The presidents goals are right; his method, depending on how far he goes, seems ill-advised. Until he outlines his legal justification, if he eventually proceeds unilaterally as promised, no firm judgment can be offered. But his options seem limited if he intends to carry out the sort of sweeping changes that advocates of reform are counting on.

Just a year ago, Obama told an interviewer that it would be very difficult to defend legally any move to shield large numbers of additional illegal immigrants from deportation as he did in 2012 for so-called Dreamers undocumented migrants brought to this country as children.

Other ways for the president to protect immigrants from deportation, including granting administrative parole, have never been used and are not intended for huge categories of millions of individuals facing possible deportation.

Whether Obama may be able to make stick such a blanket change in enforcement is one question; he probably can. A separate question is whether its wise.

His decision to postpone an action he promised for the end of the summer, for fear of the electoral fallout, underscores the enormity of the likely political backlash. By ignoring Congress and sidestepping normal procedures the same procedures he himself followed for several years in hopes for immigration reform Obama does the nation no favors.

We share the presidents conviction that the immigration system is a mess; that Congress specifically, House Republicans has abdicated its responsibility and defied popular will by refusing to fix it; and that the status quo of 11 million undocumented immigrants is economically self-defeating.

But rewriting the law unilaterally in defiance of Congress and on dubious legal grounds, even after the midterm elections, will not ultimately serve the cause of durable reform. It is more likely to ignite a political firestorm that will give the upper hand to immigration restrictionists, who would use it for years to justify resistance to reform. For the president, that would be a pyrrhic victory indeed.

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Immigration Reform

When the U.S. Senate race in Arkansas heated up this summer, Mark Pryor found himself under attack from his opponent with a nasty and inaccurate ad claiming that the Democrat had supported giving Social Security benefits to people who had forged identities to work in the U.S. illegally. In Georgia, Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn has been fending off charges that she is "pro-amnesty."

And here in New Hampshire, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen saw her reelection race tighten after Republican Scott Brown launched a barrage of ads faulting her 2010 vote for the Dream Act, which would have granted legal status to some young immigrants.

Earlier this month, Obama acceded to pleas from a number of vulnerable Democrats to delay until after the November election his promise to use executive power to transform the nation's immigration system. Though the delay angered some activists, many Democrats in tight races were relieved, hoping that his announcement would cool some of the heat of an issue that could energize the GOP base, particularly in states with low numbers of Latino voters.

But Republicans insist that immigration remains a potent issue in many contested Senate races. The president, they note, merely postponed his threat to use his executive power, and could well grant legal status to as many as several million people now here illegally. Though it is Republicans who have stalled immigration reform in the House, they believe Obama's delay has given them a new opening to attack Democrats for addressing issues affecting Latinos only when it is politically convenient. Potentially at stake is control of the Senate, which Republicans will seize if they gain six seats.

Days after the White House announced the delay, Brown laced into Obama and Shaheen in his primary night victory speech in New Hampshire, faulting their "failed policies on immigration" for the surge of unaccompanied minors who came across the border from Central America. (He did not mention that a law encouraging unaccompanied minors to seek refuge in the U.S. passed under President Bush, a fellow Republican.)

"A nation without borders is not a nation at all," Brown said as he previewed his case against Democratic incumbent Shaheen in a state where a mere 3.2% of the population is Latino. "In Washington, what are they doing? They're only inviting more chaos at the border by creating amnesty."

"You have someone before you who will do everything in my power to secure our borders," Brown said to cheers in Concord, "to make sure that you, and everybody else, is safe and secure when you travel around our country."

Those kinds of lines are playing well for Republicans in competitive Senate races across the country, where the midterm electorate is typically more white and conservative than in presidential years.

Some Republican strategists fear that the hard line adopted by Republicans such as Brown and Tom Cotton, who is running against incumbent Pryor in Arkansas, could further alienate the GOP from Latino voters, who are key to their hopes of regaining the White House in 2016.

But demographics are on their side this year. Latinos make up 5% or less of eligible voters in eight of nine keenly watched Senate races: Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and North Carolina. The lone exception is Colorado, where 14.2% of eligible voters are Latino, making it the one contested state where Obama's delay in fulfilling his promise could actually hurt the Democrat, incumbent Mark Udall.

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In tight Senate races, immigration could still be a priority issue