News

Mar 12, 2010

President Barack Obama called a bipartisan effort to revive legislation that would revamp U.S. immigration laws “promising,” and committed his administration’s backing for the initiative.

Obama met at the White House yesterday with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who are drafting an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. They gave him an update on attempts to lay out a path to win bipartisan support for the measure.

Schumer, of New York, and Graham, of South Carolina, are working on a measure that would create a guest-worker program, tighten border security and resolve the status of the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country illegally. They also want the nation to adopt more secure Social Security cards to block undocumented immigrants from getting jobs.

In a statement after the meeting, Obama said his “commitment to comprehensive immigration reform is unwavering.”

Obama backed the attempted revamp of the nation’s immigration laws by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, that stalled in the Senate in 2007. Obama, like Bush, favors legislation that would give undocumented immigrants a path to gain legal status, a politically divisive issue that drew enough public opposition to help sink the last attempt.

Graham said in a statement that he and Schumer told Obama they will need him to get personally involved in pushing any legislation through Congress.

Graham also said he cautioned the president that passing health-care legislation in the Senate over Republican opposition using a budget procedure called reconciliation could have the effect of dooming immigration legislation. The tactic would bypass Senate rules that often require 60 votes to move major legislation. Democrats control 59 votes in the Senate.

“Using reconciliation to push health care through will make it much harder for Congress to come together on a topic as important as immigration,” Graham said.

Before his meeting with Graham and Schumer, Obama met with advocacy groups pressing Congress for an immigration overhaul.

“The president indicated that his administration is committed to driving a bill forward in the spring of 2010,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said in a statement.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration was ready to move.

“If we can see a path to getting this done in the Congress with bipartisan support, I can assure you the president is anxious to get this and many other things done,” Gibbs said.