The newly appointed chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus thinks there is definitely room for improvement on President Barack Obama's progress on immigration. Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., will lead the group of Latino lawmakers beginning next year and is already analyzing the president's performance on the important immigration issue.

She graded the president on his performance so far, giving him with a B+ for how well Obama has done handling immigration during his six years spent in office.

"There are areas in which we obviously would have liked to see more done on immigration," Sanchez said in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" that will air Sunday. "Clearly, the president is limited by certain legal precedents, but we think overall he's been very receptive on that issue."

Under pressure from the Latino community for much of the past year to move on reform because of the millions of undocumented residents facing deportations, Obama took steps to shield nearly 5 million people living in the U.S. from being sent away and granted many of them work permits.

This only partially met the expectations of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who would have liked to see more sweeping action that provided more protections for a larger number of immigrants. The CHC nearly approved a resolution in March taking a stance against the Obama administration before the president announced he would review his administration's immigration policies.

Sanchez still defended Obama, telling the C-SPAN interviewer that so far the president has been "far, far, far more receptive than the Republican leadership in the House, in their delay and stalling tactics."

"I think the president has been solid, I think he understands the issue," Sanchez said. "I think he really fundamentally understands what's at stake for the Hispanic community and so overall I think he's done a pretty decent job."

Related