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President Obama on Monday will call on Congress to pass “commonsense immigration reform,” according to a White House official. Obama will speak Monday morning in San Francisco, urging House Republicans to take up the issue as soon as possible. Obama will highlight key principles that must be a part of any bipartisan comprehensive effort, the official said, including continuing to strengthen border security, creating an earned path to citizenship, holding employers accountable and bringing our immigration system into the 21st century. The White House says immigration reform has strong, bipartisan support across the country. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday...

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — Many Republicans, with eyes trained on the presidential election in 2016, have sorted through the wreckage of the 2012 elections to figure out how and why the GOP suffered such heavy losses, including the White House. But at the Republican Governors Association conference in Arizona on Wednesday, one theory dominated at an early panel discussion: That the X-factor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lacked might have been a more compassionate tone. "People have to know that you care about them," said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, one of the governors believed to be weighing a presidential bid in...

A group of New Jerseyans reportedly embarked on an 150-mile journey across New Jersey today to support granting in-state tuition at state colleges and universities for undocumented immigrants... ( snip ) Along the journey, the group hopes to meet with New Jersey lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st Dist.), U.S. Rep. Jon Runyan (R-3rd Dist.), U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.) and U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd Dist.),The Tretonian reported. The state Senate today approved a bill allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition and qualify for state financial aid programs... ( snip ) Gov. Chris Christie has expressed...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is urging Republicans to keep a strict focus on the pocketbook concerns of voters in coming elections — and avoid social issues that have been the party’s Achilles’s heel in some recent campaigns. Walker, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, also told The Hill the GOP can shed its reputation as the “party of no” only if it offers creative alternatives to Democratic policies they oppose, like ObamaCare. “For us politically, it doesn’t make sense for us not to be focused on the fiscal and economic issues,” he said in a Monday interview. “The left...

The Senate’s immigration bill would transfer another eight House seats to Democratic-dominated states before many of the extra immigrants become citizens, according to a new study by the Center on Immigration Studies. Three seats will shift in 2020 because the census counts everyone — including non-citizen immigrants, guest-workers and illegal immigrants — when it reapportions the House’s 435 seats among the 50 states. Another five seats would be moved by the 2030 census if the bill becomes law, said Steven Camarota, the author of the study and the research director at the center. “Everybody agrees that the immigrants and their...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush are expected to visit the University of Southern California this week, according to reports. The nation’s 43rd President will visit the campus Tuesday as part of the President’s Distinguished Lecture Series, the Daily Trojan reported. Reports of the visit were first leaked earlier this month after an email reportedly sent by Lisa Ebiner Gavit, the secretary of the USC College Republicans, was forwarded to L.A. Weekly. Only currently-enrolled students will be allowed to attend the event, which is scheduled for Nov. 19 at 6:45 p.m....

Last week, in one of the most bizarre columns he’s ever written, George Will inadvertently blew Mitch McConnell’s cover as the prince of amnesty. As Democrats languish from the negative consequences of the Obamacare rollout, and amnesty legislation is left for dead, George Will is looking for a way to revive “comprehensive immigration reform.” Comparing Mitch McConnell to Henry Clay, the ultimate compromiser, Will suggests that McConnell’s great achievement as Majority Leader- in-waiting would be to pass amnesty and save America from a civil war: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does know. The most important Kentuckian since Henry Clay, McConnell...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) says he supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally as part of an overhaul of the nation's immigration system. "If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don't care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else," Walker said Tuesday during an interview with the Daily Herald Media Editorial Board of Wisconsin. "I want them here." Walker was then asked about the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally. The editorial board asked if he...

Assuming a farm bill is passed by the end of the year, the next legislative priority for the dairy industry will be immigration reform. A top official at the National Milk Producers Federation is optimistic that reform will occur. “I believe that by 2014 we are going to have comprehensive immigration reform,” says Jamie Castaneda, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and trade policy at NMPF. “When they’re going to do it, I can’t tell you whether it will be the first six months (of 2014) or a lame-duck session” after the November congressional elections, Castaneda said.