Obama Expects Immigration Bill in April
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John Gurzinski/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Obama expects an immigration bill to come before the Senate next month and voiced optimism that a final bill could pass through Congress this summer.
A bipartisan group of senators, known as the “Gang of Eight,” missed a self-imposed deadline to submit a comprehensive immigration reform bill by the end of March, sparking concern that the group had reached an unsolvable impasse. But Obama said on Wednesday that the group is “actually making progress” and that they are very close to reaching a final agreement on a bill.
“I’m actually optimistic that when they get back they will introduce a bill,” Obama said during an interview with Univision. “My sense is that they have come close and my expectation is that we’ll actually see a bill on the floor of the Senate next month.”
The president has repeatedly said that he would propose his own immigration bill should negotiations in Congress grind to a halt. But Obama refused to say that he would take such action even if the lawmakers fail to introduce a bill in April.
“I’m not going to presuppose that they don’t [reach an agreement],” he said.
When Obama was asked if immigration reform could still get done by the summer, a goal he set out earlier this year, the president replied, “I believe so.”
Comprehensive immigration reform is one of Obama’s top second-term priorities, and it’s a rare issue where agreement between Republicans and Democrats in Washington has emerged since the November election.
The president has long faced pressure from Latino groups to act, especially since seven in ten Latino voters backed his reelection bid. Republican decision-makers certainly believe that cooperating on an immigration bill could help them make inroads among Latino voters, who have largely abandoned the party during the past eight years.
But some of the specific details of the bill have proven tough to iron out, like a new visa program to bring in low-skilled immigrant workers.
One area where Obama says there is broad agreement is border security. The president said it’s important for an immigration overhaul to ensure that employers cannot hire undocumented immigrants. He also said it must tighten security at the U.S.’s southern border, but added that tremendous progress has already been made.
“Given the size of the border, it’s never going to be 110 percent perfect,” Obama said. “What we can do is to continue to improve it.”
At the same time, Obama said that many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. “have invested their lives here, many of them with American born children.” It’s essential, he added, that “they have an opportunity to earn their way — a difficult path but a certain path — toward citizenship.”
The White House on Wednesday announced that Obama would visit Mexico and Costa Rica in May. The president said he would discuss ways to boost trade and economic cooperation with Mexican and Central American leaders.
“A lot of what drives both illegal immigration to the United States, but also what drives a lot of the violence in these countries, is a lack of opportunity,” Obama said. “If we can help them to grow, that could be good for the United States, that could be good for those countries as well.”
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