OBAMA LEGACY: Immigration stands as most glaring failure

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after the Supreme Court sent his immigration policy into legal limbo, President Barack Obama huddled around a long conference table in the Roosevelt Room with disappointed activists.

[...] with that, Obama delivered his version of a concession speech on a fight that has frustrated him like few others, roiled the campaign to replace him and is certain to test his successor.

Despite two campaigns full of promises and multiple strategies, Obama imposed only incremental, largely temporary changes on the immigration system.

Advocates and allies will credit him with embracing a newly aggressive assertion of executive power that, despite the court deadlock and political opposition, remains a legal pathway for the next president.

[...] Obama also will be remembered as a president who prioritized other issues, missing perhaps the best chance to pass sweeping legislation and only reluctantly adjusting his strategy in the face of firm opposition.

The decision left in place an injunction freezing his 2014 executive action, which expanded his protection of Dreamers and temporarily protected some parents of people with legal status.

The deadlock, resulting from a Republican blockade against Obama's Supreme Court nominee, left the constitutionality of the action unsettled.

"If the Supreme Court had ruled in his favor, he'd probably be remembered as the person who helped to protect half of the undocumented population in the country, which probably would have been a turning point toward reform sooner rather than later," said Frank Sharry, founder of the immigration reform group America's Voice.

In 2014, the president declared the administration's limited resources would be focused on removing threats to national security and public safety and recent arrivals.

"Devising that approach and implementing it has fundamentally changed the way laws are enforced and has had a real impact on communities," said Cecilia Munoz, the president's chief adviser on immigration.

With Latinos, a key political constituency, restless ahead of his re-election bid, Obama announced his first executive action to shield Dreamers in June 2012.

"Republicans never gave him credit for the actions that were taken both in terms of security on the border and deportations that did occur," said Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who backed the Senate bill but opposed Obama's executive actions.