Washington, DC - Last night, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan offered the following statement after President Obama’s speech indicating he would issue a sweeping Executive Order on immigration:

“The President’s decision to issue this executive order is a stunning act of partisanship and polarization. Clearly, he is more interested in playing politics than helping hard-working taxpayers. With this legally suspect and unilateral act, he has poisoned the well on what should be a bipartisan effort and brought relations with Congress to a new low.

“Congressional leaders asked for time in order to advance reforms that secure our border, respect the rule of law, and fix this broken system – but the President has refused to work with us; instead, he’s chosen to go it alone.

“We need to fix our immigration system, and we can fix it while upholding the rule of law. But the President’s overreach will make lasting reform that much harder to achieve.”  

 More from Congressman Ryan on the President’s executive action:

• Washington Post: “We've gone to the president and said, ‘Give us time to do immigration reform, to work on the issue this year. We want to get this done.’ And this is the reaction he has to that?” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the 2012 vice presidential candidate. “He had two years with a super-majority of his own party, and he didn't lift a finger. And now he won’t give us a few weeks? He’s basically choosing to give us a partisan bomb.”

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:  “I fear that if the president moves forward on this unconstitutional executive order, that he’s going to do so much to poison the well intentionally, to pick a fight with Congress, that it’s going to bring more gridlock,” Ryan said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. “If he proceeds with this, it would be one of the most breathtaking and stunning acts of polarization that I have ever seen in government,” Ryan said. “That will be his intentional decision to have an even more adversarial relationship with Congress.

• Washington Times: “Rather than go around Congress, I would encourage the President to give the House time to develop solutions that respect the rule of law, secure our border, and fix our broken system for good.”

• Reuters:  "I think it would do great damage in his relations with Congress," Ryan said of an expected Obama move to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States. "If he chooses to do this, we will see this as a move for him to play 2016 politics, to try and help his party versus our party, instead of working and coming to common ground with Republicans in 2015 to get things done, which is what I think the voters told us they want in this very last election."

Contact: Kevin Seifert, Kevin.Seifert@mail.house.gov