EL PASO, Texas — President Obama tied immigration legislation to the nation’s economy Tuesday as he attempted to reignite his reform plans on a sweltering hot day in El Paso, Texas.
Though the speech, hyped in advance by White House officials as a major policy addition, contained few new proposals, it was a chance for the president to push once more for his proposals before the 2012 election season makes reform all-but impossible in the short-term.
In an attempt to head off political criticism, Obama said repeatedly that Republicans’ plans have already been enacted, and that it was time to give his administration a try.
“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. All the stuff they’ve asked for, we’ve done,” he said, mocking what he perceived as their never-ending demands.
“Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat,” he added to jeers from the friendly crowd at Chamizal National Park in El Paso.
Obama repeated a litany of his proposals, including flooding border towns with additional agents. He said there should be an onus on businesses to ensure that their workers have legal papers.
He also attempted to tie immigration reform efforts to the US economy.
“One way to strengthen the middle class is to reform our immigration system, so that there is no longer a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor while depressing wages for everyone else,” he said.
Obama also re-emphasized his support for the so-called DREAM Act, a priority from his first two years in office that would have created a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the US by their parents before the age of 16 provided they attend two years of college or join the armed forces. The legislation died after it failed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster in the Senate back in December.
Republicans have repeatedly voiced objections to the DREAM Act, claiming it amounts to amnesty.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) plans to refile the bill Wednesday, FOX News Channel confirmed.
Despite the serious topic, Obama frequently drew laughs from the crowd. At one point, he invoked News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, whom the President quoted as saying “immigrants have made America great.”
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with Rupert Murdoch’s views, but let’s just say he doesn’t have an Obama bumper sticker on his car,” Obama said. “But he agrees with me on this.”
Obama’s plans face a treacherous road to become law, particularly given the Republican-led House of Representatives. His predecessor, George W. Bush, tried to enact meaningful immigration reform during his second term in office but was rebuffed by members of his own party in Congress.
Obama delivered his remarks just over the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an epicenter of the violent drug trade that has threatened some US border towns. More than 3,000 people were killed in 2010 alone in Juarez, a city of 1.2 million inhabitants only three miles (4.8 kilometers) from El Paso.
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