UFW with President Obama during White House speech urging immigration reform legislation this year
Measure pending the House includes the agricultural provisions
negotiated by UFW and major grower associations
Washington, DC − President Obama today once again called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-oct-24-remarks-on-immigration-reform/2013/10/24/7e322db4-3cba-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html). Joined by pro-immigration reform leaders, the President asked House Republicans to either vote on pending legislation such as the bipartisan bill approved by the Senate earlier this year or produce their own proposals for consideration. But he urged Congress to finish the work of fixing the nation’s broken immigration system with sensible and meaningful legislation that embraces earned citizenship by the end of the year.
"It doesn’t make sense to have 11 million people who are in this country illegally without any incentive or any way for them to come out of the shadows, get right with the law, meet their responsibilities and permit their families then to move ahead. It’s not smart; it’s not fair; it doesn’t make sense. We have kicked this particular can down the road for too long," the President said.
United Farm Workers Vice President Giev Kashkooli, who was invited to be with President Obama when he delivered his remarks, thanked the President for understanding that citizenship is essential to any immigration reform plan.
"Polls have shown that the majority of Americans favor giving new immigrants the option of applying for citizenship, but the House Republican leadership wants to tell these immigrants, ‘You can pick our crops, you can take care of our children and elderly, but you can’t be one of us,’" Kashkooli said.
President Obama also invited Americans to continue putting pressure on Congress and the White House to get immigration reform done this year.
"There are going to be moments—and there are always moments like this in big efforts at reform—where you meet resistance and the press will declare something dead and it’s not going to happen. But that can be overcome," he said.
President Obama—whose popular 2008 campaign slogan "Yes We Can!" derives from the UFW’s slogan "Si Se Puede!"—won’t have to wait long. The UFW and the farm worker movement, along with local and national immigration reform advocates, is redoubling its efforts to pass legislation this year.
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