Republicans have used immigration reform as political tool: White House

The opposition Republican party has used comprehensive immigration reform as a political stunt and a political tool and they are not interested in resolving the issue, the White House has said.

As we've seen, Republicans have continued to use this as a political stunt, a political tool, and not actually come to the table to have a conversation on how to protect Dreamers and farm workers. You know, more immigration judges and asylum officers are needed. More funding for border security is needed, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her daily news conference on Monday.

This is something that we have put forward in that legislation and so much more. They don't want to do that. They want to do political stunts, as we've seen from governors and mayors across the country, she alleged responding to a question on comprehensive immigration reform in particular on legal immigration.

President Joe Biden on the very first day of his administration, put forth comprehensive immigration legislation, she said.

That's to show how seriously he took this, how he understood that the system had been broken. It needs to be modernised, be moved to the 21st century, she said.

This is something that the president has talked about. He has asked Congress to take action, Republicans in Congress to take action, and to work on this in a bipartisan way. He's going to continue to do that.

In the meantime, he's put forth some -- he has tools that he's used to making sure that we do this, we actually deal with the immigration system in a humane way, and in a way that actually deals with what we're seeing at the border, Jean-Pierre said.

That's why you've seen the parolee programme be so successful. When it comes to illegal migration, you've seen it come down by more than 90 per cent. That's because of the actions that this president has taken. But we know that more action needs to be taken, so it has to be legislative action, she said.

We're going to continue to call Congress to do that. And so, this is important to this president. On day one, on day one, he put forth legislation to move forward on this, Jean-Pierre said.