Following Judge Andrew Hanen's temporary injunction ruling to pause President Barack Obama's deferred action programs, the president addressed the delay to his immigration executive actions, saying he was confident his actions would eventually proceed despite the ruling.

During a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and newly confirmed Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Obama acknowledged he disagreed with the temporary injunction ruled by Hanen, a federal court judge for U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas' Brownsville Division. The president reiterated White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest's statement from Tuesday morning about the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) plans to appeal Hanen's decision.

"This is not the first time where a lower court judge blocked something or attempted to block something that ultimately was shown to be lawful. And I'm confident that it is well within my authority and position of the executive branch's prosecutorial discretion to execute this law," said Obama on Tuesday. "This will help us make our borders safer, will help us go after criminals and those that we don't want in this country, will help people get on the right side of the law and get out of the shadows."

Obama said the immigration executive actions -- announced on Nov. 20, 2014, which includes to deferred action programs for approximately 4.9 million undocumented immigrants -- were necessary because the U.S. will not deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country.

"Many of them are our neighbors. Many of them are working in our communities. Many of their children are U.S. citizens," said Obama, later adding, "I think the American people overwhelmingly recognize that to pretend like we are going to ship them off is unrealistic and not who we are."

The president once again said the only route to solve a broken immigration system is by Congress, and it has been accomplished in the Senate in June 2013 with a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. The Senate bill, however, has stalled in the House of Representatives and has not been picked up for a debate.

"I held off taking these executive actions until we had exhausted all possibilities of getting congressional action done," said Obama. "With a new Congress, my hope has been that they now get serious in solving the problem. Instead, what we've had is a series of votes to kick out young people who have grown up here and everybody recognizes are part of our community, and threats to defund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which would make it even harder for us to protect our borders and to keep our people safe."

In regards to the DHS, Obama is referring to H.R. 240, a House bill that would fund the Homeland Security for the 2015 fiscal year. The House bill, however, includes Republican-supported amendments to defund DACA. While H.R. 240 passed the House, it has stalled in the Senate due to Democrats' filibuster. Obama has previously threatened to use his veto power on legislation erasing his immigration executive actions. Meanwhile, DHS funding expires on Feb. 27, and Congress has not passed a new funding bill for the president to sign.

During his meeting with Biden and Carter, Obama advised Congress to work on a comprehensive immigration policy if lawmakers are concerned about immigration and border and national security. He also called for DHS funding legislation.

In response to Hanen's decision, Obama said law and history is on his (Obama's) side. He recognized Hanen's ruling and said the government will follow the decision.

"The law is the law in this country, and we take things a step at a time. So we're not going to be actually taking [deferred action] applications in until this case is settled, but we are doing the preparatory work because this is a big piece of business and it's important for us to do in order for us to actually secure our borders effectively and allocate limited resources to the most important tasks and functions that the Department of Homeland Security has," Obama continued.

As Latin Post reported, Hanen issued a temporary injunction on the federal government from implementing DACA and DAPA. The temporary injunction goes in favor of 26 states suing the Obama administration about the deferred action programs. Hanen has allowed for an appeal to be filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Hanen, the injunction was granted due to the defendants -- referring to the U.S. federal government -- not complying with the Administrative Procedure Act. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has led the lawsuit on behalf of the 26 states, including the Lone State State.

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For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.

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