Aboard Air Force One last night, President Obama called Arizona’s controversial new immigration law “a mistake” — and said he’ll need the help of Republicans to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.
“What I think is a mistake is when we start having local law enforcement officials empowered to stop people on the suspicion that they may be undocumented workers, because that carries a great amount of risk that core values that we all care about are breached,” he said.
And it’s not just — this isn’t just my opinion. You’ve seen a number of very prominent Republicans say that this is a problem.
“These kinds of shortcuts,” the president said, “will end up polarizing the situation instead of solving the problem.”
Asked about the possibility of pushing forward on comprehensive immigration reform this year, the president said he’s called Republicans and asked for their help, but that “this is a difficult issue.”
“It generates a lot of emotions, and the politics are difficult,” he said. “But I’ve been unwavering in saying what we need to do. I think that I can get a majority of Democrats to support a comprehensive approach. But I need some help on the Republican side. We had that kind of help a couple of years ago. Senator McCain was one of the leaders in that process. I gave him a lot of credit for it, and still do.”
And so the question is, can we get some movement on that front? Lindsey Graham has been in serious conversations with Senator Schumer. I appreciate his courage on that. And my hope is, is that we can get a working group that can move this forward so that we’ve got serious legislation that solves the border problem and solves the wide range of issues that we face under immigration reform in a way that can garner the support of the American people.
“It’s a matter of political will,” the president said. “Now, look, we’ve gone through a very tough year, and I’ve been working Congress pretty hard. So I know there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue. There’s still work that has to be done on energy. Midterms are coming up. So I don’t want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn’t solve the problem. I want us to get together, get the best ideas on both sides, work this through, and when it’s ready to go, let’s move. But I think we need to start a process at least to open up a smarter, better discussion than the one that is raging right now.”
