Washington Post
By Katie Zezima
April 16, 2014
President
Obama blasted House Republicans on immigration Wednesday, saying they
would rather keep a fractured system in place than institute immigration
reform.
Obama's
statement comes on the first anniversary of the introduction of a
comprehensive bipartisan immigration bill in the Senate. The Senate
approved the bill by a vote
of 68 to 32 in June. The decisive, bipartisan victory came in a chamber
where partisanship has become the norm.
House
Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and fellow Republicans have refused to
act on the contentious bill, which has led to fissures within the
party. In January, Boehner
released a set of immigration principles stipulating that border
security and internal enforcement of immigration laws must come first.
Republican leaders said they would be open to allowing illegal
immigrants to work and live in the United States. They stopped
short of embracing a "special path" to citizenship for people entered
the country unlawfully or overstayed their visas.
Obama
said Wednesday that Republicans have failed to take action, "seemingly
preferring the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful
reform."
Obama
and Democrats said a Republican bill that passed the House last week
goes after Obama for a number of policies, including health care and
focusing on deporting criminals
rather than the children of undocumented immigrants. Last year, the
House voted on an amendment that would strip protections from these
children, who are known as "Dreamers" because they would have benefited
from a long-stymied legislative proposal called
the Dream Act.
"House
Republicans have voted in favor of extreme measures like a punitive
amendment to strip protections from Dreamers," Obama said.
The
Senate bill's reforms would cost $50 billion. The bill would open up a
pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. It would
also place an onus
on employers, who would be required to check the legal status of
employees, and it would double the number of Border Patrol agents on the
U.S.-Mexican border and build 700 miles of fence there.
Obama
said the Senate bill would grow the economy and shrink the national
deficit by nearly $850 million, "while providing a tough but fair
pathway to earned citizenship to bring 11 million undocumented individuals out of the shadows."
Obama said the Senate bill would allow the country to "live up to our most closely-held values as a society."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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