In an appearance on the Spanish-language network Univision on Thursday, President Obama faced tough questions over his immigration policies, including his failure to fulfill a campaign promise to enact comprehensive immigration reform during his first year in office. Obama called the lack of immigration reform the “biggest failure” of his presidency but attempted to shift blame for the failure to Republicans.

President Obama: “When we talked about immigration reform in the first year, that’s before the economy was on the verge of collapse. Lehman Brothers had collapsed. The stock market was collapsing. And so, my first priority was making sure that we prevented us from going into a great depression. And I think everybody here remembers where we were four years ago. What I confess I did not expect, and so I’m happy to take responsibility for being naïve here, is that Republicans who had previously supported comprehensive immigration reform — my opponent in 2008 who had been a champion of it and who attended these meetings — suddenly would walk away.”

Obama’s comments come as his administration faces scrutiny for deporting and detaining a record number of undocumented people. Nearly 400,000 immigrants were deported during the last fiscal year.