President Obama pushes immigration overhaul

EL PASO, Texas — President Barack Obama Tuesday challenged lawmakers to enact immigration reform, declaring that immigrants benefit the U.S. economy and that the border is more secure than ever.



“The question is whether those in Congress who previously walked away in the name of enforcement are now ready to come back to the table and finish the work that we’ve started,”... “We’ve got to put the politics aside.”

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“We’re here at the border today because we also recognize that being a nation of laws goes hand-in-hand with being a nation of immigrants,” Obama said at Chamizal National Memorial park, a dusty outpost on the bluffs of the Rio Grande named for a century-long border dispute. Obama made his now-familiar moral argument for immigration reform and reiterated his proposals: provide a path to citizenship, secure the borders, improve the existing immigration system and crack down on employers who exploit illegal workers.

 

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“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. “Maybe (next) they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat.”

 

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Obama also is hitting hard the argument that immigrants, with their hard work and entrepreneurship, are a boon to the U.S. economy.

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He stressed that some bipartisan support for comprehensive reform already exists — including from conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

“That’s Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and an immigrant himself,” Obama said. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with his views, but let’s just say he doesn’t have an Obama bumper sticker on his car.”

Yet Obama’s efforts to reshape a familiar issue to make it more appealing on economic and law enforcement grounds isn’t likely to persuade lawmakers to overhaul immigration policy before the 2012 election.


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