Mediaboss Marketing

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and the Republican leadership clashed over the immigration reform, which analysts say would make it difficult for the passage of the legislation that proposes to provide a path to citizenship to 11 million undocumented people from countries like India.

"Unfortunately, Republicans in the House of Representatives have repeatedly failed to take action, seemingly preferring the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful reform," Obama yesterday said in a strongly worded statement following which he spoke with the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

"The President called me hours after he issued a partisan statement which attacked me and my fellow House Republicans and which indicated no sincere desire to work together. After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a serious dialogue," Cantor said.

Cantor said House Republicans do not support Senate Democrats' immigration bill and amnesty efforts, and it will not be considered in the House.

"I hope the President can stop his partisan messaging, and begin to seriously work with Congress to address the issues facing working middle class Americans that are struggling to make ends meet in this economy," Cantor said.

In his statement, Obama alleged that instead of advancing commonsense reform and working to fix the immigration system, House Republicans have voted in favor of extreme measures like a punitive amendment to strip protections from 'Dreamers'.

"The majority of Americans are ahead of House Republicans on this crucial issue and there is broad support for reform, including among Democrats and Republicans, labor and business, and faith and law enforcement leaders," he said.

"We have a chance to strengthen our country while upholding our traditions as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and I urge House Republicans to listen to the will of the American people and bring immigration reform to the House floor for a vote," Obama said.

The Immigration Reform Bill passed by the Senate, Obama said, would grow the economy by USD 1.4 trillion and shrink the deficit by nearly USD 850 billion over the next two decades, while providing a tough but fair pathway to earned citizenship to bring 11 million undocumented individuals out of the shadows, modernizing the legal immigration system, continuing to strengthen border security and holding employers accountable.

"Simply put, it would boost our economy, strengthen our security, and live up to our most closely-held values as a society," Obama said.

View post:
US President Barack Obama, Republican leaders clash on immigration reform

Lack of immigration reform leads children to cross US border alone
The death of an Ecuadorian children on the border between Mexico and the United States alerted authorities on the increasing amount of minors crossing the US...

By: teleSURenglish tv

Here is the original post:
Lack of immigration reform leads children to cross US border alone - Video

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- Immigration champion Rep. Luis Gutierrez feels confident that President Barack Obama will use his executive powers to push through reform. House Speaker John Boehner feels confident that doing so will tank what little support the President has among Republicans on immigration reform.

They're both right, immigration law experts say.

After pushback from immigration activists and some members of his party, the President has directed his administration to reexamine its deportation policy.

The administration could shift noncriminals and minor offenders to the lowest deportation priorities.

"I think the President has a difficult decision to make here," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University Law School. "The courts have upheld wide discretion on immigration matters. He could make noncriminals the lowest deportation priorities. ... But there is a penalty he could pay through using executive action rather than waiting for Congress to act on immigration reform."

That political price, Boehner told Fox News last week, is "that will make it almost impossible to ever do immigration reform, because he will spoil the well to the point where no one will trust him by giving him a new law that he will implement the way the Congress intended."

"The American people want us to deal with immigration reform," Boehner said on Fox News' "Kelly File" during the same interview. "But every time the President ignores the law, like the 38 times he has on Obamacare, our members look up and go, 'Wait a minute: You can't have immigration reform without strong border security and internal enforcement. How can we trust the President to actually obey the law and enforce the law that we would write?'"

Legislation stuck in the House

Last year, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform package -- which includes a citizenship path for an estimated 8 million of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Here is the original post:
Obama's deportations dilemma

Although advocates of comprehensive immigration reform have trained their sights on President Obama recently, House Republicans are facing a final dose of pressure to pass legislation before the summer recess and midterm elections grind work in Congress to a halt.

From one side, leaders from a variety of faiths plan to appeal to Republicans for a common-sense overhaul of the nation's immigration laws that will result in better enforcement and less family separation. On the other side are House Democrats, who are still working to enlist the support of Republicans who have expressed support for immigration reform in the past or who would have the most to gain by supporting legislation.

After several public exhortations to get House Republicans to act, the president has largely left them to their own devices. Facing Latino advocates who have labeled him the "deporter-in-chief," he has ordered a review of his administration's deportation policies but insisted there's little he can do without a legislative fix.

He repeated that point Tuesday in a meeting with faith leaders from around the country. The White House, in a statement about the meeting, said Mr. Obama, "emphasized that while his Administration can take steps to better enforce and administer immigration laws, nothing can replace the certainty of legislative reform and this permanent solution can only be achieved by Congress."

Luis Cortes, the president of Esperanza, a Hispanic faith-based community-development corporation, told reporters that the president told the group, "he would not be doing anything to change the law as it currently exists."

"He sounds pretty committed to waiting until the August recess, this next few months to see if the House will take up some kind of action here," said another meeting participant, Noel Castellanos, the CEO of the Christian Community Development Association in Chicago. "He's kind of damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Really the president's action is temporary, anything he does doesn't' fix anything. We're pushing for a law change."

Although the House Republican conference released a set of immigration principles earlier this year, they quickly backed away from action after House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said lawmakers could not trust the president to enforce the law. Several single-issue bills have been authored by a handful of lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee, but none have received a vote on the floor.

Despite the yawning gap between Democrats and Republicans on the issue - Democrats want the GOP to take up the bill passed by the Senate that includes a conditional pathway to citizenship for some illegal immigrants - the faith leaders still see an avenue for compromise.

"I think that there's a real consensus in the faith community that something needs to be done and that there's plenty of space for a commonsense solution," Suzii Paynter, the Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Atlanta, who attended the White House meeting, told CBS News. She added that there is "no lack of commitment" among faith leaders, even though they have been disappointed before.

Castellanos noted that there has never been as much unity between the diverse spectrum of religious groups on the issue, and that they have become more "focused" in their efforts to move Congress to action. There will be a fly-in by several evangelical groups in late April to talk to lawmakers, and the plan is to push for action in the final work period in June and July before the month-long August recess.

Continue reading here:
Faith leaders, Democrats eye House GOP for final immigration push

WASHINGTON -- In a last-ditch effort to bring an immigration overhaul to a vote in Congress, House Democrats on Tuesday began targeting key GOP lawmakers in hopes of pressuring House Speaker John A. Boehner to act.

The election-year campaign against 30 House Republicans, who have expressed interest in changing the nation's immigration laws, was framed by Democrats as one last opportunity to engage in a legislative debate before President Obama begins taking executive actions.

The administration has indicated it plans to halt strict enforcement of some immigration laws, including deportations that separate families, if Congress fails to act. Obama met Tuesday with faith leaders as protesters continued their second week of vigil in front of the White House.

"The president's going to be forced to act," said Rep. Joe Garcia (D-Fla.), a chief sponsor of a bipartisan bill that has sat idle in the House.

Boehner has tried to nudge the Republican majority to consider immigration reform, but lawmakers have been cool to the issue. Only three have signed onto the House bill.

A sweeping package approved last year in a robust bipartisan vote in the Senate landed with a thud in the House, where many Republicans from congressional districts with few minority residents have little interest in the issue. But GOP elders believe immigration reform is paramount to expanding the party's voter base before the 2016 presidential election.

The inaction has left immigration advocates increasingly frustrated with Obama, but the administration has urged them to focus instead on Republicans as the main obstacle to reform.

The effort launched Tuesday is a long-shot attempt to force a floor vote through procedural methods. Under House rules, Boehner would be forced to allow the vote if a majority of lawmakers sign a so-called discharge petition. Democrats are about two dozen signatures short of the 218 needed, and are targeting those key Republicans to make gains.

Both sides acknowledge that if the vote was held, the legislation may, in fact, pass, which could prove thorny for Republicans from conservative districts where many voters criticize the reform bill as "amnesty" for immigrants.

The measure would beef up border security and guest worker programs, while allowing a route to legal status for those who have immigrated illegally. It is similar to the bill that was approved by the Senate.

Go here to see the original:
Immigration activists push House GOP in last-ditch campaign for vote