Obama: Those Principles On Immigration Boehner Announced Sound Ok To Me

Fantastic.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and GOP leaders on Thursday released a set of "principles" that included a path to legal status -- but not citizenship -- for the more than 10 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States. Immigration reform advocates expressed optimism about the move, and Obama's words Friday seem to further improve chances for a deal.

"If the speaker proposes something that says, right away, folks aren't being deported, families aren't being separated, we're able to attract top young students to provide the skills or start businesses here and then there's a regular process of citizenship, I'm not sure how wide the divide ends up being," Obama said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.

Obama echoed immigrant advocacy groups that gave the GOP's so-called "principles" a vote of confidence. These groups in recent days have expressed more openness to something that stops shy of a path to citizenship.

"I am encouraged by what Speaker Boehner has said," Obama said. "Obviously, I was encouraged by the bipartisan bill that passed out of the Senate. I genuinely believe that Speaker Boehner and a number of House Republicans, folks like Paul Ryan, really do want to get a serious immigration reform bill done."

The only upside to the GOP giving conservatives the shaft on immigration, again, is when Team GOP says, "by holding Republicans accountable for their liberal votes you are only helping to elect Democrats" we can point out that they are the ones who are throwing Obama a legislative lifeline. We just spent 2 days talking about how the State of the Union proved Obama's agenda was dead and he was reduced to "a pen and a phone" gestures. And yet the Republicans have decided this is the perfect time to offer him a way forward on one to the Democrats top 3 legislative priorities.

A couple of reminders from the archives...

Yes, it's amnesty because there are penalties on the books now for being here illegally that will be ignored.

Amnesty is immoral.

Being anti-amnesty isn't the same as being anti-immigration or anti-immigrant.

In case you missed it last night, watch the video in this post of people learning what ObamaCare is going to do to them and their families. Then explain to me why the GOP wants to waste one second helping people who are breaking our laws that could be used to help these people who just want to raise their family and not get hurt by their government.

And to add insult to injury, not only will Republicans spend time not helping these people, they will be working to make sure people who came here illegally can now compete with them for their jobs.

There's your GOP. But sure, keep telling me why it's terrible I won't blindly vote for anyone with an "R" after their name.

posted by DrewM. at 11:25 AM

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