Posted on 05/09/2011 3:10:49 PM PDT by jazusamo
Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s commitment to providing some legal status for illegal aliens is reflected in the time he has spent focusing on the country’s immigration laws in recent weeks, the White House said one day before the president is set to deliver a national address on immigration from El Paso, Texas.
In recent weeks, Obama met with current and former elected officials, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities – all whom agreed with his position on the matter – to promote comprehensive immigration reform.
Proponents call the proposal a “pathway to citizenship” for the roughly 12 million illegal aliens in the country; critics call it “amnesty.”
“It will reflect his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday. “We weren’t able to achieve it in the first part of the president’s term but it remains a priority of the president, even though it’s hard. He takes on hard things because he believes they’re important to get done. Hard things often need bipartisan support.”
“One thing I would note,” Carney continued, “is there was bipartisan support at the highest levels of the Republican Party – including the president, George W. Bush, including Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s nominee in 2008.”
The proposal has even less support today, however, with McCain and other Republicans having largely reversed themselves on the issue.
Obama is likely less concerned about pushing the proposal than about appealing to a political base in the lead up to his 2012 reelection campaign, says Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, a pro-border enforcement group.
“If Bush couldn’t get an amnesty bill passed, any bipartisan consensus for an amnesty bill now is not possible,” Dane told CNSNews.com.
Dane wondered why the president has only talked about the matter with people who already agree with him.
“Where are the true stakeholders in immigration policy – the American people?” he asked. “They will pay the cost for immigration policy, but they don’t have a seat at the table with the far-left, big business and special interests.”
Obama will visit El Paso Tuesday to deliver remarks about immigration reform, before traveling to Austin for two fundraising events for the Democratic National Committee.
El Paso is one of nine Border Patrol sectors along the almost 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, running from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Ocean. Located directly across from the Mexican city of Juarez, it has been among the more dangerous border areas in recent years.
Carney declined to say whether Obama would raise any new aspects during the visit. He did indicate that “border security” would be on the agenda – but “not border security alone.”
“The number of border agents today is double what it was in 2004,” he said. “We’ve got triple the number of intelligence analysts working the boarder. We’ve deployed unmanned aerial vehicles that now patrol the border from Texas to California. We are screening 100 percent of southbound rail shipments to seize guns and money going south, even as we go after drugs coming north.”
Carney also stressed the economic impact of immigration.
“It is simply foolish as a matter of policy when we think about global competition, economic competition that we face in the 21st Century, to educate some of the smartest, most creative entrepreneurial young people from around the world in our universities, the finest in the world, and then not let them stay and start businesses to launch startups, to create jobs in America,” he said.
“[New York] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg noted this fact – in recent years over 25 percent of high tech startups in the United States were founded by immigrants. We’ve been deporting 50,000 jobs.”
>> He takes on hard things because he believes they’re important to get done. Hard things often need bipartisan support.”<<
He takes on hard things because he needs support from the rear-guard.
The Won refuses to enforce the laws of the United States.....good impeachment fodder.
The press should pillory him...but who is holding their breath?
Maybe Al Qaeda will show up at El Paso.
The enemedia will be stumping with and for him and his amnesty plan, we can bet on it.
I don’t care if he did kill Osama Bin laden and I don’t care if he managed to produce some BS birth cerificate, he’s are an enemy of the state and has to go. The tea party needs to prepare to shut down the government. DO NOT RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!
Amnesty goes well with the Obama Abomination’s chant of racism.
Bush is retired and McCain's positions have been repudiated. He barely beat a local talk show host in his 2008 re-election bid, and that was in the GOP primary!
So, the actual leaders of the GOP at this time are Boehner and McConnell. McCain has never been elected to the leadership. Is Carney just stupid (wasn't he a video-game developer or something?) or is he purposefully putting down the GOP leadership?
Or course, he could talk about some of the possible nominees who will challenge Obama. How about Trump? Too blunt. OK, Palin? Oh, not much softer after all.
Yeah, Carney's got a tough job, but that doesn't excuse his poor performance in it.
Why are my tax dollars being used to screen goods being shipped out of the United States? Does mexico screen all of their northbound rail shipments? /rhetorical
No one is saying just what happens when these illegals get legal. I’ll tell you. EVERY one of them with old relatives will immediately take steps to import them AND get them working just long enough to get the minimum number of SS qualified quarters and get them on SS! That’s what. You think baby boomers are gonna cause a problem? You ain’t seen nothin yet.
I wonder why he doesn’t go jet skiing on Falcon Lake?
Good cop bad cop....As the audience of fools applauds as the political frauds like masked wrestlers, perform their choreographed and rehearsed moves.
World Order, no borders, no nationalism, global economy forcing America into decline, bigger government, easier to control, all while diluting and fragmenting the American people with tens of millions of foreigners, illegal or otherwise.
Exactly. That 12, 15 or 20 million illegals now could easily double or triple in a few years.
The Tootsie Roll Slurpee 500 gets 1200 posts....This thread won’t see 100.
Is you is or is you ain't?
Deport carney.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Zero! No amnesty!
Effin traitor.
Despicable a$$.
These people talk like Mexico’s best and brightest are sneaking over the border.
Quite the contrary, they are the poor, illiterate dregs of society and they are a drag on ours no matter how many motel rooms need cleaning and lawns need mowing. If we get our immigration and welfare policies in order, there would be plenty of unemployed Americans who would do those jobs if it was a choice between working in a menial job and starving.
The ONLY thing that illegals should be given is a blindfold and a cigarette....OR A BUS TICKET BACK....that’s THEIR choices in a REAL America.
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