Obama Pushes for Amnesty This Year
In his press conference recognizing his 100th day in office Pres. Barack Obama reaffirmed plans to push amnesty this year. Obama said, "I see the process moving this first year. And I’m going to be moving it as quickly as I can."
The President was asked one question about immigration reform, and from that one question he offered a lot of insight into his vision of immigration policy in the United States. Most importantly, Pres. Obama suggested a plan that would offer amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens that would also work towards securing the borders.
If the American people don’t feel like you can secure the borders, then it’s hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, well, you’re just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.
The President also addressed the issue of worksite enforcement and stated the Administration's position to move away from ICE raids and towards an administrative approach aimed at the employers themselves.
On the other hand, showing that there is a more thoughtful approach than just raids of a handful of workers as opposed to, for example, taking seriously the violation of companies that sometimes are actively recruiting these workers to come in. That’s again something we can start doing administratively.
Pres. Obama acknowledged that it will be tough to convince the American people that future immigration laws can be enforced when current laws are not being enforced.
So what we want to do is to show that we are competent and getting results around immigration, even on the structures that we already have in place, the laws that we already have in place, so that we’re building confidence among the American people that we can actually follow through on whatever legislative approach emerges.
See a full transcript of Pres. Obama's press conference.