PORTLAND, Maine - Maine's independent U.S. Sen. Angus King is criticizing President Obama's decision to take executive action on the immigration issue. Talking to reporters at a news event in Portland this morning, King said he's a strong supporter of immigration reform, but that Obama's decision to act alone was misguided.
"I'm just concerned it may set the cause back - that we've got now a Republican House and a Republican Senate, so, by definition, if we're going to have comprehensive reform it's got to involve Republicans," King said at an event today in Portland, "and I'm just afraid that by sort of laying down the gauntlet and going it alone it's going to make it more difficult to gain some consensus on the issue."
In a statement released earlier, King added that he was disappointed that the U.S. House has failed to even debate a legislative solution to the immigration issue.
King's Republican colleague, Sen. Susan Collins, says the president is acting inconsistently. "His actions are contradicting his previous statements," she says in a statement. "By acting unilaterally, the president is making it less likely that Congress will act to pass comprehensive reforms."
Collins says the president's action "is contrary to how our constitutional system is supposed to work."
Tom Porter contributed reporting to this story.