Is Immigration Obama's Last Big Thing?

“Passions may fly on immigration,” candidate Barack Obama said when he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president in August 2008. “But I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.”

Obama, the son of an American woman and a Kenyan man who came to the U.S. legally to study, has been promising to get something big done on immigration since he first ran for president. Time and again, he said legal recognition and a path to citizenship were needed to address the nation's roughly 12 million undocumented residents. Neither he nor the Latino voters and immigration advocates who put their faith in him—and later turned their frustrations on him—planned on it taking this long. They also didn't foresee a solution that bypasses Congress with executive actions that can be reversed by a future president.