A day after the Republican leadership in the Congress literally postponed the immigration reform at least for this year, US President Barack Obama today said that there is no reason not to do immigration reform, which when passed would provide path to citizenship to some 11 million undocumented people.
"When it comes to immigration reform, there is no reason for us not to do immigration reform. We have already got strong bipartisan support for immigration reform out of the Senate," Obama told reporters at a White House news conference.
"I met with a number of traditionally very conservative clergy who are deeply committed to immigration reform. We've got the business community entirely behind immigration reform. So you've got a bunch of constituencies that traditionally have leaned much more heavily towards Republicans who are behind this," he said in response to a question.
"So if people are looking for an excuse not to do the right thing on immigration reform, they can always find an excuse. You know, we've run out of time or, you know, this is hard or, you know, the list goes on and on," he said, taking a dig at the Republican leadership.
"But my working assumption is people should want to do the right thing," Obama added.
"When you've got an issue that would strengthen borders, make sure that the legal immigration system works the way it's supposed to, that would go after employers who are doing the wrong thing when it comes to hiring undocumented workers and would allow folks who are here illegally to get right with the law and pay a fine and learn English and get to the back of the line but, you know, ultimately join fully our American community, when you've got a law that makes sense, you shouldn't be looking for an excuse not to do it.
"And I'm going to keep on pushing to make sure it gets done," Obama said.
In a major blow to the chances of a comprehensive immigration reform, the House of Representative Speaker John Boehner had yesterday said that the Republican Party would not take up the immigration reform bill this year.
The US Senate has already passed the bill and it was now the House's turn to pass it to make it into a law.
