The Hill
By Jordan Fabian
May 6, 2015
President
Obama used a Cinco de Mayo party on Tuesday to plug comprehensive
immigration reform even though the issue appears all but dead in this
Congress.
Lawmakers
have expressed little interest in tackling immigration reform this
year, but Obama said “we’re not just going to stop now” in attempting to
fix the nation’s
immigration laws.
“Congress
still needs to step up and ultimately pass comprehensive immigration
reform,” he told a group of Hispanic leaders and activists assembled at
the White House.
He said passing a bill is “the right thing to do.”
The
Senate approved a sweeping bill in 2013 that would have offered a path
to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants while boosting border
security.
But
the proposal never picked up traction in the House, and Speaker John
Boehner’s (R-Ohio) effort to convince Republicans to pass their own bill
fell on deaf ears in
2014, a midterm election year.
Obama
issued a series of executive actions last fall that would have provided
deportation relief and work permits to millions of immigrants living in the U.S. legally, including parents of U.S. citizens. The orders also expanded
eligibility for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program that Obama set up in 2012.
The president’s newest programs, however, have been frozen by a lawsuit that is pending in federal court.
Obama said the actions he took were “within my legal authority to make our immigration system fairer, smarter and more just.”
The president tried to give the crowd encouragement despite the obstacles that have dogged his immigration agenda.
“Progress
is not always a straight line. Sometimes we have to take this turn or
that turn,” he said. “The good news is the American people are with us.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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