Los Angeles Times
By Christi Parsons
May 13, 2014
President
Obama signaled Tuesday that he is open to compromise on immigration
reform, saying he is not "hell-bent" on getting everything from the
Senate immigration bill
into the version that finally hits his desk.
But
Obama said the measure that finally passes must hew to some "core
principles," including some sort of "pathway to citizenship" for
immigrants in the country illegally,
a point of contention in the debate.
In
remarks to law enforcement officers visiting the White House, Obama
argued that comprehensive immigration reform would make their work
easier because it would undermine
criminal enterprises and help police focus on their jobs.
The
remarks come as the Obama administration presses forward with a full
review of its deportation practices, with Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson charged with
making sure they're "humane."
Even
as the agency tries to clean up the current practices, though, senior
advisors to the president say they aren't planning to make major changes
through the use of
his administrative powers. Rather, they say, the president plans to
keep pressing House Republicans to either pass the Senate bill or to
come up with something acceptable in its stead.
On
Monday, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told business leaders in
Texas that he is working with his colleagues to "bring them along" on
immigration reform. The
same day, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said
immigration reform is crucial for the Republican Party and its prospects
of winning the White House.
If they don't pass something, Chamber President Tom Donohue said, "they shouldn't bother to run a candidate in 2016."
In
his remarks on Tuesday, Obama said reform advocates have public opinion
on their side, and suggested that more and more Republican opinion
leaders are coming to the
conclusion that some kind of reform is necessary.
"The
closer we get to the midterm elections, the harder it is to get things
done around here," Obama said. "So we've got maybe a window of two,
three months to get the
ball rolling in the House of Representatives."
Police, business leaders and evangelical Christians will be crucial to passing a reform measure, Obama said.
"We're
not hell-bent on making sure that every letter of what's in the Senate
bill is exactly what ultimately lands on my desk for a signature, but
there's some core principles
that we have got to get done," Obama said.
In
addition to improving border security and legal processes, he said,
"we've got to make sure that there's a way for people to earn some
pathway to citizenship."
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