Obama: "No doubt" Congress will pass immigration, gun bills in coming months
Obama: "No doubt" gun, immigration bills will pass in coming months
There's more bipartisan support in Congress for comprehensive immigration reform than gun control legislation, President Obama said tonight during an interview with Univision, but qualified that even under his proposal, illegal immigrants shouldn't be harboring expectations that they'll be granted citizenship "manana."
"Even under our proposal, this is not a situation where overnight, suddenly people all find themselves as citizens," Mr. Obama told the Spanish-language television network. "They're going to have to go to the back of the line. We're going to have to clear out the existing line, backlogs we have in terms of illegal immigrants, because they did it the right way. We shouldn't punish them for breaking the law.
"...What we don't want to do is to create some vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen manana," he continued, chuckling softly at the somewhat awkward injection of the Spanish word for "tomorrow." "But we have to put that in place at the outset, and make sure people are clear that this pathway is real and not just a fantasy for the future."
Asked whether he was in a standoff with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the son of Cuban immigrants who has said he will not support a bill that does not put border control ahead of a path to citizenship, Mr. Obama said no, but pointed out that the number of people crossing the border illegally has dropped "about 80 percent since 2000."
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On Tuesday, the president delivered a speech in Las Vegas outlining his immigration plan and applauding a bipartisan group of eight senators that has offered up proposals as well. In an interview today with another Spanish language network, Telemundo, he specified that he's hoping immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship can be passed in the next six months, but "certainly this year."
Meanwhile, despite facing more resistance from the right on tightening gun laws, he said he has "no doubt" that Congress will be able to put through legislation on gun control, as well as immigration.
Obama: Legalization for illegal immigrants won't happen "ma?ana"
"On the gun issue, you're starting to see gun owners, people who traditionally have opposed gun control, saying, 'You know what, when 20 of our children are shot by somebody who is disturbed, and when it is that easy to get these high-clip magazines that can fire off hundreds of shots in a few minutes, then it's time for us to do better job on background checks, to get control of these magazine clips, to really crack down on gun trafficking," Mr. Obama said in the Univision interview.
The Senate Judiciary Committee today held the first congressional hearing on gun violence since last month's massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, that left 20 children and six adults dead. Star witnesses included former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who survived a shot to the head two years ago during an assassination attempt that left six people dead, and her husband on one side, and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre on the other.
Both gun control and immigration "will end up generating some opposition," the president said. "There will be passions on both sides. But I'm generally encouraged that the Senate seems to be having a serious conversation about these issues."
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The immigration debate is threatening to split the Republican Party, pitting those who focus mainly on presidential elections against those who care mostly about congressional races.
Strategists say that if Republicans are to win presidential elections, which they've been losing lately, partly because of dismal support from Hispanic voters, they must soften their rhetoric about illegal immigrants and embrace some version of "immigration reform."
But granting illegal residents a path to citizenship, which critics call "amnesty," is deeply unpopular in many House Republicans' districts.
Some GOP strategists fear they will lose either way.
Cook said House Republicans make a mistake if they view national issues such as immigration "through the prism of your district," said a participant at the private session. Republicans eventually can improve their standing with Latinos if they stop talking and acting as though they don't like immigrants, Cook told the House members.
What the Democrats fail to recognize is that they will also lose, bigtime, if they persist in standing with Wall Street rather than the ordinary citizen when it comes to immigration policy.
LOL! Years ago (pre-Internet years), I used to read American gun magazines and saw this quote frequently used to ridicule people who favored gun control.
This quote used by the NRA gun nuts, is misattributed to Freud, and is not a statement that appears in any translation of any of Freud's works. It is a paraphrase of a statement from the essay "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution" (February 1990) by Don B. Kates, Jr.
But go ahead ricky, and use misattributed quotes that only make you look ignorant and more of a far-right gun freak and anti-government zealot!
Immigration from other countries and especially Mexico was directly caused by the giant corporations of Wall Street after they purchased the US government. They pulled the puppet strings and had their servants pass the free trade agreements that forced all the Mexicans to come here. And it enabled the corporations to drive wages of American workers down. They are just too smart for most Americans to follow.
Got to go I will tell you about why there is a gun problem later.
I have been using "firm father figure worldview" but most people don't know what that is from George Lakoff. Maybe "reactionary alert" or "slow mind alert". The right wing ideology has become a real scourge on our society.
# 1) Consider acquiring a gun. A handgun, like a 9mm or a .38 special will do.
# 2 )Learn to use a gun. The first rule of gunfighting is owning a gun.
# 3 )Store the gun
Nothing is more demonizing or dividing than conversations regarding gun control, race, or sex. How convenient we are having these bills being brought up at the EXACT MOMENT our congress is figuring out how to avoid fiscal accountability, which is actually our biggest problem.
Anyone else want to hear some more accountability and closure on overspending and budgets, before we get down to new issues?
When ObamaCare was being written, it was done behind closed doors. When the heat was on they took turns with acts of public "distractions".
I pictured Reid, Biden, Pelosi drawing draws each morning. Draw the short straw, you get to be village idiot of the day. Fox News fell for it every time.
So long as they are required to return to their country of origin while they're waiting in line, there's no problem.