Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused President Obama on Monday of deliberately baiting Republicans into voting against an immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for the undocumented population as part of a plot to lower the GOP’s standing with Latino voters. But White House spokesman Josh Earnest pushed back the same day, telling reporters tha “there’s no evidence to support those claims.”
“What the President has been saying for quite some time now is that he believes that comprehensive immigration reform is in the best interest of the economy of the United States of America,” Earnest said. “It also is the best way to demonstrate that we are both a nation of immigrants but also a nation of laws. And what we’re looking for is a piece of legislation that falls in line with the principles that the president has offered. The president would be very pleased if those principles had strong bipartisan support when they’re presented before the United States Senate, and is hopeful that with that bipartisan support [it] would pass the Congress and would be something the president could sign into law sooner rather than later.”
