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White House reportedly assures Hill lawmakers about executive action this year on immigration reform

The White House this week assured anxious Hispanic lawmakers on Capitol Hill that President Obama will use executive action before the holiday season closes to reform U.S. immigration law, after breaking his pledge to make changes by the end of summer.
The message was delivered in a meeting Thursday with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other administration officials, including domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz, a key player for Obama on the issue, according to Politico.
The president faced sharp criticism, including accusations of caving to election-year politics, from Hispanic lawmakers, immigration-reform advocates and others in his Democratic base when the White House revealed last weekend that he would delay action until after the Nov. 4 elections.
In 2012, Obama used executive action to delay deportation for many young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents. He is expected to widen that effort to include millions more.
Roughly 11 million people are now living in the U.S. illegally.
This week’s meeting was apparently intended to restore the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s faith in the White House, considering in part that a reform plan appears stuck in the GOP-led House.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said he needs “constant reassurance” that the president will soon act.
“I don’t want to go down this path come November and then for some other reason, find that the immigrant community and the Latino community get thrown in the heap again,” he told Politico.
Multiple people familiar with the meeting told Politico that McDonough did not go into specifics about the executive action but made clear Obama will go as far as he can under existing law.
McDonough also declined to get into specifics.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said the caucus will meet early next week to determine a formal response to the White House over delaying deportation relief.

Landrieu releases report on questionable flights, new safeguards, after repaying $34G

Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, battling to keep her Senate seat, released a detail report Saturday on her air travel since 2002, after repaying the Treasury earlier this week nearly $34,000 in questionable travel expenses.
The three-term senator on Friday apologized for the mistakes that she blamed on “sloppy bookkeeping" and said that on Sept. 1 she put new procedures in place.
“I take full responsibility,” Landrieu said. “They should have never happened, and I apologize for this. A new system has been established that has been successfully used by a number of Senate offices to provide a safeguard from this happening in the future.”
The 11-page report shows 104 flights. It also states the campaign spent $202,330 for separate flights for campaign travel over the period in question, that the $33,727 repaid is the correct prorated amount and that lawyers will now determine the percentages that Landrieu’s campaign and Senate office should pay.
Louisiana Republican Party Director Jason Dore filed a complaint Sept. 2 with the Senate Ethics Committee, accusing Landrieu of billing taxpayers for campaign travel.
Republicans need to win a net total of six seats in November to take control of the Senate and have made Landrieu a top target since the start of the election cycle.
Over the past few weeks, state Republicans have also argued Landrieu shouldn’t be eligible for reelection because her true residence is in Washington, not her parents’ home in Louisiana.
“No matter how Senator Landrieu spins it, she billed taxpayers for dozens and dozens of private jet flights since the turn of this century," said the campaign for Republican Bill Cassidy, Landrieu’s closest challenger in the deadlocked race. “Even more problematic is the fact that she did not release any flight records from 1997-2002.”
Landrieu also released a letter on Saturday from her Washington, D.C.-law firm, Perkins Coie, to the Ethics committee in which the firm says it conducted the review and arrived at the repayment amount, on behalf of the senator and Friends of Mary Landrieu Inc.