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WASHINGTON With their hopes for broad legislation to overhaul immigration policies all but dead for the year, advocates have turned quickly to a new target: Pushing President Obama to take executive action to ease deportations of immigrants in the country illegally.

In a coordinated, aggressive and sharp-elbowed campaign, leaders who stood behind the White House not long ago as the president called immigration reform his top second-term priority are now attacking Obama for not doing enough on his own. Dismissing Obamas insistence that his hands are tied by the law, advocates plan to pile on until he relents -- as he did once before in the run-up to an election.

This week, the president of the National Council of La Raza, the countrys largest Latino advocacy organization and one of the White Houses most loyal allies, blasted Obama as the deporter in chief.

In remarks on the House floor, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Obamas fellow Illinois Democrat, pointed to portraits of Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama and compared deportations under each. President Obama has detained more immigrants in jails, prisons and detention facilities than any other president, Gutierrez said.

The charge is not new; Obama has long faced criticism for presiding over a record number of deportations, roughly 2 million to date. Still, the strategy sends a mixed message to a key Democratic constituency before the midterm election. Democrats hoped to see immigration advocates assail Republicans who held up the overhaul bill.

Advocates suggest their goal is to play one off the other, arguing that Republicans in Congress may feel compelled to advance legislation if they think the president is on the verge of taking unilateral action.

Republicans can either be participants in how this country advances more sensible immigration policies or they can simply sit on the sidelines while the president does it with his phone and pen. Gutierrez said, picking up the presidents shorthand for his promise to wield his executive power to take action without Congress.

Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, an immigration advocacy group, thinks its likely Obama will eventually act. The administration is deporting people every day who the administration says should be given legal status and a path to citizenship, so the question is: If Republicans continue to stall, does the president have the authority to make things better? Sharry said. We think he will act even though hes not talking like it now.

For now, the White House is absorbing the criticism, careful not to return fire and potentially alienate Latinos voters, a constituency that cares about immigration reform and has been loyal to the president.

Obama on Thursday argued that he was not the deporter in chief but the champion in chief of the stalled comprehensive immigration reform effort.

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Immigration advocates step up pressure on Obama to ease deportations

FORTUNE -- As the 2014 midterm elections draw nearer, the issue of immigration reform will be used as a wedge to pressure vulnerable Republicans into either angering their base and supporting reform, or alienating key demographics.

The politics of immigration are complicated, as are the economics. Researchers are split over whether immigration brings down the wages of low-skilled workers in the U.S. But with respect to other questions, like whether immigration promotes overall economic growth, the data is clear. It overwhelmingly does.

MORE:How France learned to hate capitalism

One way to highlight this is to compare economic growth over the past 30 years in the U.S. to other wealthy countries like France, the U.K., and Japan. A stylized fact often thrown about is that the United States, over the 80 or so years in which we've measured this sort of thing, has consistently grown faster than other countries due to its more enthusiastic adherence to classic capitalistic principals. Check out the graph below, which shows nominal yearly GDP growth from 1982 to 2012:

As you can see, the U.S. consistently beats out its wealthy peers. Over this period, nominal GDP growth in the U.S. has averaged 5.4%, compared with 1.8% in France, 2.4% in the U.K., and 1.9% in Japan.

But one fact that often gets overlooked is that the U.S. population has been and continues to grow at a faster rate than its industrialized peers. Take a look now at GDP growth over that same period, this time on a per capita basis:

US GDP per Capita Growth data by YCharts

Here, the competition is much closer. In fact, the U.S. doesn't even win. On a per capita basis, these countries grow at:

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Without immigration, the U.S. economy looks like sclerotic Old Europe

Trump was not voicing the same type of caution given by some reform advocates and experts who have said that without meaningful action on the issue, the GOP runs the risk of alienating one of the fastest-growing voting blocs in the country. Its the kind that can be seen as fear-mongering, and for reasons people on both sides of the debate have said are simply not true.

With immigration you better be smart, you better be tough, Trump said Thursday at the 2014 CPAC meeting in Washington. They are taking your jobs, and you better be careful.

This is what the political opposites on immigration reform have to say on the impact of immigration on Americas labor force and wages:

Liberal-leaning think tank Brookings Institution

Although many are concerned that immigrants compete against Americans for jobs, the most recent economic evidence suggests that, on average, immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans. ... One reason for this effect is that immigrants and U.S.-born workers generally do not compete for the same jobs; instead, many immigrants complement the work of U.S. employees and increase their productivity. [Read]

Right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute

Overall, when you look at the effect of all immigrants on employment among U.S. natives, there is no evidence that immigrants take jobs from U.S.-born workers.

And from the same source...

Immigrants with advanced degrees boost employment for U.S. natives. This effect is most dramatic for immigrants with advanced degrees from U.S. universities working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

And the same source again...

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Immigration Reform: Donald Trump Warns CPAC 2014 Crowd, Be Careful About Immigration

WASHINGTON -- President Obama insisted Thursday that hes not the "deporter in chief," as critics have labeled him, but the "champion in chief" of a fairer immigration policy.

But until Congress passes a new law, Obama said, he is constrained by current statutes in how he treats immigrants who entered the country illegally.

I cannot ignore those laws any more than I can ignore any of the other laws that are on the books, Obama said. Thats why its important to get comprehensive immigration reform done this year.

Support for that view among reform advocates is splintering, a fact becoming clearer by the day. The president of the National Council of La Raza, the countrys largest Latino advocacy organization, this week coined the deporter in chief term for the Democratic president the group has worked with in the past.

Then Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Obamas fellow Illinois Democrat, used the same phrase on the House floor as he complained about Obamas policy of continuing to deport illegal residents.

When Obama sat down for a town hall meeting Thursday, hoping to boost Latino enrollment in health insurance plans, one of the Spanish-speaking hosts started off by asking about the deporter in chief comment.

Obama answered that he has been pushing for comprehensive reform.

I am the champion in chief of comprehensive immigration reform, Obama said. He pointed out that his administration has turned its focus away from deporting young immigrants brought to this country when they were children and instead put the priority on immigrants in the country illegally who are involved in criminal or gang activity.

But in so doing, he said, he has already stretched his administrative capacity.

At a certain point, he said, he has to enforce the laws on the books even while pushing to change them.

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Obama calls himself the 'champion in chief' of immigration reform

The traditional Lenten practice of fasting is being paired this year with the latest round of an ongoing campaign called Fast for Families, intended to bring attention to the campaign for immigration reform.

On Ash Wednesday, March 5, more than two dozen presidents of Catholic colleges and universities pledged to fast for 24 hours in support of the effort.

Their effort is one piece of the latest iteration of Fast for Families, which also includes weekly commitments to fasting, local ongoing fasts and cross-country stops at in-state congressional offices by national leaders of the campaign that last fall was based in a tent on the National Mall.

In a letter announcing their fast, the college presidents said their 24-hour act of solidarity and prayer "for those who still suffer because of cruel and impractical immigration policies" was a symbolic way of opening the season of Lent by remembering "Christ's journey of suffering in the desert wilderness" by praying for immigrants who hunger and thirst for justice.

The presidents said they "draw encouragement from students on our campuses who work tirelessly to turn this vision into a reality. Brave DREAMers are inspiring their peers to join them in the struggle for justice and dignity. Catholic students are praying and mobilizing and calling on Congress to act."

The presidents invited students, faculty and fellow administrators to join them in "this communal act of prayer. Pope Francis' powerful witness to the dignity of migrants and call for everyone to confront our 'culture of indifference' inspires us to act."

They noted that many of them wrote to Catholic members of Congress last summer urging them to use their positions of influence to "put the common good and families before partisan politics. As our political leaders delay, immigrant families are torn apart. More migrants die in the desert. We pray that by joining others across the country in this small act of sacrifice, the hearts of elected officials will be touched and leaders will be moved to act."

Meanwhile, the national leaders of the Fast for Families continued making stops on two cross-country routes to events held at the district offices of members of Congress. Typical was the stop in Phoenix by Eliseo Medina of the Service Employees International Union, who fasted last fall for 22 days in the tent on the National Mall, before ending his fast in November during an ecumenical prayer service.

In Phoenix, after events at offices of the Arizona congressional delegation, he sat with people who had been fasting for weeks in hopes of helping their relatives who are in immigration detention, facing deportation.

Medina's bus and another bus making a similar path across the northern part of the country are to converge in Washington for an event April 9. The paths are scheduled to take them to stops in 70 congressional districts.

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Lenten Fast for Families draws attention to immigration reform efforts