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By Jim Acosta, CNN

November 13, 2014 -- Updated 0725 GMT (1525 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- For President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress, distance does not make the heart grow fonder.

With the president escaping to Asia for a critical foreign trip after last week's bruising losses for his party, White House officials are signaling Obama will take a hard-nosed approach with Congress when he returns to Washington.

Obama is "nearing a final decision" on issuing an executive order bringing reforms to U.S. immigration policy, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at a briefing in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Earnest reiterated the President's goal to act on the issue by the end of the year.

Immigration reform advocates working with the administration on the expected executive action anticipate Obama will expand his policy of deferred deportation for undocumented children to their families, a move that may provide enforcement relief to as many as five million people.

The expected incoming Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has described such a move as a "poison pill" that would damage relations with the new Republican Congress coming into power in January.

Aides to the President brush off those GOP warnings, noting threats from Republican leaders to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Obama has vowed he will never sign that repeal legislation into law.

"Repealing Obamacare is also a poison pill," White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer said.

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Obama pitted against congress