Does President Obama want an immigration bill that he can sign into law?
We ask because his intentions are not clear. Yesterday, he declared that he was open to an “appropriate compromise.” But that is also what he said as a senator in 2007, at the same time he was inserting amendments into the bill that helped blow the whole thing up. If he wants this one to turn out differently — especially after the humiliation on gun legislation — he needs to have a talk with his attorney general.
At a speech before the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund last week, Eric Holder declared that a path to citizenship for those here illegally “is a matter of civil and human rights.” These remarks will only increase the skepticism of those who worry about the administration’s good faith in administering US law.
Add to this Sen. Jeff Sessions’ claim that, notwithstanding promises from the Gang of Eight who drafted the bill, legislative loopholes mean that millions of these citizens-to-be would become able to draw state and federal benefits much “sooner than advertised.”
The GOP has thrown up its own obstructions, most notably a House Republican bid to insist that people here illegally first plead guilty in court to breaking immigration laws before being granted citizenship. That’s an unproductive non-starter, for it would mean that along with their new American citizenship these people would all carry a criminal record.
Our view is that Democrats and Republicans made great headway toward a compromise once President Obama and his team were taken out of the process. Left to its own devices, the Hill can work out even these latest differences.
If the president wants to see a bill land on his desk, he could help by instructing his attorney general to keep his big yap shut.