Immigration Reform Bill Could Pass in Six Months, Obama Says
President Obama said that the bipartisan group of senators working on immigration legislation was following a “reasonable timeline” and suggested he would push to get a bill passed in the first half of the year.
In a pair of interviews the day after kicking off his public campaign for immigration reform, Obama told the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo that he would put the weight of his office - and his bully pulpit - behind the effort.
“I can guarantee that I will put everything I’ve got behind it,” Obama told Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz-Balart. “We’re putting our shoulder to the wheel.”
Obama began that effort Tuesday with a speech outlining his top priorities for a bill, including a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants currently living in the country illegally. But Obama also encouraged the group of senators crafting compromise legislation and said their principles were in line with his own.Still, the president aimed to put the Senate on a clock and threatened to send up his own legislation if the process didn’t move ahead in a “timely fashion.”
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