Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was confronted about House inaction on immigration reform at his weekly press conference Thursday by the country’s most prominent Hispanic journalist, Jorge Ramos, in what proved to be a tense exchange.
“Mr. Speaker, we came here to ask you, why are you blocking immigration reform?” said Ramos, a TV anchor for the Spanish-language Univision and for Fusion.
Boehner responded, “Me? Blocking?” and laughed.
“Yes, you personally. Yeah, you could bring it to a vote and you haven’t,” Ramos said.
Boehner retreated to his position that he has repeatedly spoken about the need for immigration reform and reiterated that the House won’t consider the Senate-passed overhaul but rather a “piece-by-piece” approach to reform. He again placed the blame on President Barack Obama, saying he’s “ignor[ing]” the law and needs to build trust, citing his revisions to Obamacare.
Ramos, who frequently speaks out for immigration reform, wasn’t having any of it. “What does Obamacare have to do with immigration reform?” he demanded. “The Senate passed it almost a year ago and you haven’t moved on that. Many people are questioning your leadership and your vision on this.”
When the Speaker didn’t budge, saying there’s “nobody more interested” in passing immigration reform than he is, Ramos again pressed.
“You can do it. You haven’t done it,” he said. “You can do it, Mr. Speaker. You can do it and you really haven’t done it.”
Boehner replied: “I appreciate your opinion. Thank you.”
The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration overhaul in June 2013 and Boehner, who controls what legislation comes up in the House, has taken a large share of the blame from advocates for the lower chamber’s inaction on the issue.
Watch the exchange, which begins at 49:10 in the video below.
I am happy with this more aggressive attitude. In fact, I have often wondered how and why Boehner gets away with what he does.
Is it me, or is there a lot of George Costanza in Boneher?
FYI: — You can link to any time inside of a YouTube video if you want. The code isn’t even that hard really. In fact you can control a lot of how the video loads, it’s size, what controls are available and other things. All in the referring link.
You want to douse all open flames before you do that…
Boehner is right, why have a law that regulates immigration when the Obama administration has proven time and again that it will change and vilify the law at will without any accountability?
Edit: Again, there is nothing in my comment, in my opinion, that violates TPM posted rules and regulations about commenting. Just because some people do not like my comment and flag it, it doesn’t mean my comment should be hidden or deleted. Perhaps, as a suggestion, TPM could suspend for a period of time the accounts of those who flag other people comments without any merit but personal dislike of a certain person.