WASHINGTON – President Obama’s uphill battle to reform immigration laws just got steeper.
Sen. Marco Rubio warned Sunday that Obama’s hardball tactics that beat Republicans in the shutdown fight had hardened partisan battle lines in Congress and “undermined” his push for immigration reform.
“Immigration reform is a lot harder to achieve today than it was just three weeks ago because of what has happened,” Rubio (R-Fla.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The president has undermined the effort,” said Rubio, a member of the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight that wrote the comprehensive immigration bill backed by the president.
The legislation is stuck in the Republican-run House.
“This notion that they’re going to get in a room and negotiate a deal with the president on immigration is much more difficult to do,” he said.
Rubio nevertheless continued to support the effort.
“Immigration reform is something the country needs. I don’t think anyone would disagree that we have a broken legal immigration system,” he said. “The House deserves the time and space to craft their own solution.”
Obama won the shutdown standoff over the ObamaCare, the budget and the US debt limit by refusing to negotiate. The tactic enraged House Republicans.
The president quickly pivoted to immigration reform last week after his victory in the shutdown. He hoped the win would give him new momentum to push immigration legislation though the House.
“It’s really important for the country. And now is the time to do it,” Obama recently told the Spanish-language Univision TV network.
The Democratic-run Senate passed a bill in June that included beefed up border security, tougher enforcement of immigration laws and a 13-year path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
The House has been slow-walking the legislation as a series of separate bills.
None of the bills included a path to citizenship, or what conservative critics call “amnesty,” for America’s approximately 11 million undocumented residents.
“I will never agree to anything that doesn’t have a pathway to citizenship,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Univision’s “Al Punto.”
He echoed Obama’s argument that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) should allow a vote on the Senate immigration bill, as he did on the bill that ended the government shutdown mostly with support from House Democrats.
“If immigration were brought to the floor tomorrow it would pass overwhelming in the House of Representatives,” Reid said. “The American people want it. … It’s long overdue.”