“The court route: I don’t see it,” said Jan Ting, a top immigration official under President George H.W. Bush who opposes Obama’s expected moves.

Legal experts see any challenge to the expected immigration policy changes headed for the same key roadblock facing House Speaker John Boehner’s planned suit over Obamacare implementation delays: finding a way to show the injury needed to press a case in the federal courts.

“There isn’t really anyone who would be in a position to complain,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a University of California at Los Angeles law professor who favors several of the options Obama is considering.

The lack of a clear path to challenge the president’s expected moves to give more illegal immigrants work permits and relief from deportation seems certain to fuel howls from Obama critics that he’s as much an imperial president as his predecessor — who was often criticized by Obama and other Democrats for overflexing his presidential muscle.