President Barack Obama addressed immigration questions, from Latinos and non-Latinos, during a town hall meeting Wednesday, just two days after a federal judge from Texas ruled to delay his deferred action programs.

From the start of the town hall meeting, Obama defended his immigration executive actions. He acknowledged the U.S. Senate's bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation of 2013, which has been blocked by Republicans in the House of Representatives.

"They refused to even allow it to get on the floor for a vote," Obama said.

"What I did, then, was to say I'm going to use all of the authority that I have as the chief executive of the United States, as well as commander-in-chief, to try to make sure that we are prioritizing our immigration system a lot smarter than we've been doing. And what that means is, is that instead of focusing on families, we're going to focus on felons. We're going to strengthen our borders, which is what people are concerned about."

Obama clarified that the deferred action programs -- the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) -- do not provide citizenship.

The president acknowledged the 26 states suing to block the deferred action programs' implementation. As Latin Post reported, Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas' Brownsville Division issued a temporary injunction on the expanded DACA and new DAPA programs. Hanen's temporary injunction did not erase the deferred action programs, but it delayed the start date until further notice. In response to the lawsuit, Obama said his administrative will appeal the ruling "very aggressively" and will continue such an approach because "not only do we know that the law is on our side, but history is also on our side."

Obama reiterated the use of enacting his veto power on legislation that would eliminate his executive actions. He once again called for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, which would provide a solution to disregard his immigration executive actions.

The president responded to a question about an undocumented immigrant's deportation despite being in the process to legally stay in the U.S. Obama said his executive action would prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants. While Obama admitted he does not know the specifics about the undocumented immigrant in question, the president said the new focus on deportation is on criminals and potential felons.

A U.S. Latino who served in the Afghanistan war asked Obama about his undocumented immigrant mother, who has provided many opportunities for him to succeed in the country. Obama said his mother could be eligible for DAPA, although Hanen's temporary injunction has put the deferred action program on pause.

"But in the meantime, part of the message that I'm sending is, if you qualified for the executive action that I put forward, then we're still going to make sure that your mom is not prioritized in terms of enforcement," Obama said. "And she should feel confident about that. So I just want to assure her, short term."

Obama said the long-term plan is to provide undocumented immigrants a pathway to become a U.S. citizenship but that is only possible through legislation by Congress.

He later answered a question from a DACA recipient about her mother's ineligibility of DAPA since both her children are not U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents. Obama said he does not know the specifics of the DACA recipient's case but said he's happy to have someone review the case. He said he has limited resources, regarding his prosecutorial discretion, and thus he could not apply deferred action to all 11 million immigrants.

Obama defended his immigration executive actions be referencing the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which he noted provided more than 2.5 million Latinos with health coverage. He said people should ask the next presidential candidates if they plan to deport 11 million immigrants from the U.S., and if not, ask about their plans for legal status and contribution for the country.

The president was pressed on why immigration reform was not passed when Congress had Democratic control. Obama cited the financial crisis as a reason why immigration reform was not passed in Congress.

"We were moving very aggressively on a whole host of issues. And we moved as fast as we could and we wanted immigration done. We pushed for immigration to be done. But, ultimately, we could not get the votes to get it all done," Obama said.

The immigration town hall meeting was conducted by Telemundo and MSNBC anchor Jose Diaz-Balart at Florida International University.

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