Monday morning President Obama reiterated his stance on fixing the US immigration system. Coming almost a year to date after the Senate passed his immigration reform bill, the President outlined some of the key issues we need to solve in order to restore our broken system. From sending more resources to strengthen our boarders to giving the eleven million undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, immigration reform simply must happen and the President stated that he will no longer shy away from using executive power to see it through.
President Obama laid heavy blame on House Republicans for the lack of progress in passing immigration reform and for not allowing it to come to a floor vote. What’s more, the President stressed, “it’s meant the heartbreak of separated families.”Obama has already put his executive powers to use ordering the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to send additional resources to the border to ensure the public’s safety. The President also directed Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Holder to start identifying additional actions that could be taken to try and mend as much of the immigration system as possible within the scope of the President’s executive power and thus circumventing House approval.
The President then closed his remarks by talking about the 4th of July and why we celebrate the holiday, stating that one of the things that makes this country great is that we all came from somewhere else, we are a nation of immigrants. Read more about the President’s remarks here.