Obama renews call for Senate immigration bill

By REID J. EPSTEIN
12/20/13
POLITICO

When President Barack Obama had hopes the House might pass an immigration reform package, he said he was supportive of a piecemeal series of bills.

That support may have been short-lived.

Obama on Friday urged the House to back the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, describing it as a settled matter that the legislation would benefit the country and is politically popular — without mentioning the option of slicing the measure into a series of smaller provisions.

While the question of piecemeal bills wasn’t directly raised Friday, Obama praised the Senate bill — as Vice President Joe Biden did last week — and said the House should pass it.

“There are a few differences here and there, but the truth of the matter is that the Senate bill has the main components of comprehensive immigration reform that would boost our economy, give us an opportunity to attract more investment and high-skilled workers who are doing great things in places like Silicon Valley and around the country,” Obama said. “So let’s go ahead and get that done.”

Speaking of his goals for 2014, Obama said he hoped the House would pick up the baton from the Senate.

“We can get immigration reform done,” Obama said. “We’ve got a concept that has bipartisan support. Let’s see if we can break through the politics on this.”

The apparent public shift away from agreeing to entertain the piecemeal series of immigration bills — none of which have yet been brought to votes in the House — and back to stressing comprehensive legislation began last week when Biden urged House Speaker John Boehner to call a vote on the Senate bill.

“He is unwilling to let the House speak, he is unwilling to let the House vote,” Biden said. “John Boehner, call up the bill.”

Obama spent much of the summer and fall calling for the House to take up the Senate legislation, then during an interview at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council said he was fine with the House passing a series of immigration bills.

“If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don’t care what it looks like,” Obama told the Journal’s event. “What we don’t want to do is simply carve out one piece of it … but leave behind some of the tougher stuff that still needs to get done.”

Obama’s return to putting pressure on House Republicans to pass a comprehensive immigration bill comes as the White House is facing more pressure from immigration reform activists to order his administration to use more discretion in reducing the number of deportations.

On Thursday the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency released a report showing during fiscal year 2013 the U.S. deported 368,644 people, two-thirds of whom were apprehended at the border. According to ICE, 98 percent of people deported met one of the agency’s civil enforcement priorities.

Obama was not asked about the deportations during his press conference.