(UPDATED 4:56 pm)
President Barack Obama called for comprehensive immigration reform Tuesday and urged reluctant Republican lawmakers to come to the table.
“We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement,” Obama said in a speech delivered from El Paso, a Texas city located on the Southern Border.
Acknowledging the political difficulties of overhauling the current system, Obama noted that despite allocating an unprecedented level of resources for border protection, “there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time.”
“Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied,” Obama said. “That’s politics.”
The President said that comprehensive reform needs to allow a path to citizenship for those already in the country illegally that would include the payment of back taxes and fines as well as learning English. In addition, Obama noted that industries that rely on migrant workers need to be given the means to hire them legally.
Beyond finding solutions to illegal immigration, Obama noted that the standing legal system needs to be reformed as well. Citing an economic imperative, Obama said the U.S. needs to “make it easier for the best and the brightest to not only study here, but also to start businesses and create jobs here.”
The President also invoked the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that would ease the road to citizenship for immigrant children if they attend college or join the military. Although the bill passed through the House in the last Congress, it was unable to move through the Senate.
“It was blocked when several Republicans who had previously supported the Dream Act voted no,” Obama said. “It was a tremendous disappointment to get so close and then see politics get in the way.”
Obama’s new focus on immigration has been widely interpreted as a move to secure the Hispanic vote in the 2012 Presidential election.
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President Barack Obama is headed to El Paso, Texas Tuesday to highlight and reiterate his continued interest in achieving comprehensive immigration reform.
The trip will likely serve as an opportunity for the president to reconnect with a demographic of American voters played a big part in his 2008 election. Recent polls suggest the hispanic community is not satisfied with the leadership Obama has exuded in achieving real reform.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said in his Monday briefing that, despite criticisms that Obama is already waving the white flag on getting an immigration bill passed, “immigration remains a high priority.”
Carney acknowledged that there has been opposition in Congress over the last two years on the issue, but said the president’s plan now is to “change the dynamic by rallying public support [and] by raising public awareness about the need for comprehensive immigration.”
“The president would not be dedicating this amount of time to it if he didn’t believe it was a high priority,” Carney said. “You can judge how seriously the White House takes an issue by how much time the president is focusing on it.”
Obama’s trip to West Texas gives him the opportunity to unveil what he wants Congress to include in a comprehensive bill, a move that is being tagged as the White House passing the burden of immigration reform onto Congress to save face, so to speak.
The White House remains confident that it can get a bill through Congress. Carney hinted towards this notion after he labeled the administration as being filled with “congenital optimists.”
“The capacity for bipartisan support for this kind of immigration reform, comprehensive reform, exists,” Carney said. “It existed in the past. We think we can build support for it again in the future.”