WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says his plan to stop deporting younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children will make the system "more fair, more efficient and more just."

The president says it "makes no sense to expel talented young people" who are essentially Americans. He says he was taking the action in the absence of action by Congress "to fix our broken system."

Obama's election-year initiative should help him among Hispanic voters. It will begin granting young immigrants work permits, affecting as many as 800,000 young people who have lived in fear of deportation.

A man in the Rose Garden asked Obama while he was speaking, "Why do you favor foreigners over American workers?" Obama responded that "this is the right thing to do."