News Americas, EL PASO, Texas, Weds. May 11, 2011: President Obama on Tuesday used the successes of technology companies like Intel, Google, Yahoo and eBay to keep up his push for immigration reform.
In a speech in El Paso, Texas, near the U.S. border, the President insisted that it was immigrants who founded all the top tech companies he mentioned and “immigration is not just the right thing to do (but) it’s smart for our economy.”
“It’s for this reason that businesses all across America are demanding that Washington finally meet its responsibilities to solve the immigration problem,” added Obama. “Everybody recognizes the system is broken. The question is, will we finally summon the political will to do something about it? And that’s why we’re here at the border today. So we don’t want the next Intel or the next Google to be created in China or India. We want those companies and jobs to take root here. “
The President insisted that the beefed-up security along the U.S.-Mexico border has proved effective enough to justify now launch a massive overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.
“Washington is lagging behind the country on this. There is already a growing coalition of leaders across America who don’t always see eye-to-eye, but are coming together on this issue. They see the harmful consequences of a broken immigration system for their businesses and for their communities, and they understand why we need to act,” said President Obama.
And he pointed to former Republican Senator Mel Martinez; former Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; leaders like Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York; evangelical ministers like Leith Anderson and Bill Hybels; police chiefs from across the nation; educators; advocates; labor unions; chambers of commerce; small business owners and Fortune 500 CEOs as those supporting reform that will allow the undocumented to be put on a path to legalization in the U.S.
The White House in recent months has come under growing pressure from Hispanic groups and other advocates for revamping the US’ immigration laws to take more aggressive action on the issue.
Obama, in obvious campaign mode, is stepping up his rhetoric but on Tuesday offered no new policy proposals, and set out no timetable for legislation.
Instead he insisted he cannot bypass Congress and push the reform forward but “what we really need to do is to keep up the fight to pass genuine, comprehensive reform. That is the ultimate solution to this problem.”
“That’s what I’m committed to doing,” said the President.
The comment comes even through there is virtually no Republican support in Congress for immigration reform.
Even former supporter, Sen. John McCain has joined with Senator Jon Kyl in crafting a $4 billion, 10-point plan that calls for double fencing where there is now single fencing and another 5,000 border patrol agents, on top of the 20,700 now in place.
