Immigration advocates are waiting for President Barack Obama to fulfill his pledge for executive action that would, they hope, provide relief for millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States.

Obama has vowed he would pursue immigration reform unilaterally because he can’t agree with leaders in the Democrat-controlled Senate or Republican-controlled House on a comprehensive policy for reform.

The only executive change thus far has been an order to speed up deportation hearings for the border children, who now will be required to appear before a judge within 21 days after being placed in deportation proceedings.

The administration says the accelerated procedures will not harm legal standards, but advocates say the speed-up will indeed harm standards by making it harder for the children to find legal representation. They cite a Syracuse University report that found about 90 percent of unaccompanied children seeking asylum without an attorney were deported, while 47 percent of those with a lawyer were able to stay in the country. The net result, the advocates say, is that a greater majority of the children, even those with valid claims to refugee status, will wind up being deported.

In other words, the president’s only change hurts illegal immigrants more than it helps them. It’s hardly the relief President Obama promised.

This is not the first time Obama has said one thing and done another regarding immigration. During his second presidential debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Obama advocated changes.

During the Oct. 16, 2012, debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Romney reminded Obama that he had pledged to introduce reform in the first year of his first term: “He said that he’d put in place, in his first year, a piece of legislation — he’d file a bill in his first year that would reform our — our immigration system, protect legal immigration, stop illegal immigration. He didn’t do it. He had a Democrat House and Democrat Senate, supermajority in both houses,” Romney said, according to a transcript of the debate.

Obama didn’t answer Romney’s challenge. Instead, he blamed Romney for GOP resistance to immigration reform, saying it’s very hard for Republicans in Congress to support comprehensive reform “if their standard bearer has said that this is not something I’m interested in supporting.”

It seems a stretch to call Romney the GOP standard-bearer in 2008 when Sen John McCain was the Republican presidential nominee that year.

Six years later, Obama still has not delivered on his 2008 promise of immigration reform. The only difference between then and today is his loss of a Democratic majority the House and the inability to pin blame on Romney.

The overriding questions remain: If he promised reform in 2008, why didn’t Obama pursue it then? And, with the prospect for any congressional consensus less likely now than ever during his administration, how remote is the chance for any effective immigration reform package now?

Don’t hold your breath for any meaningful immigration reform coming out of Congress or the White House in the next two years.