On Monday, President Barack Obama said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was “sincere” in wanting to pass what will add up to comprehensive immigration reform.
During a speech in San Francisco, Obama mentioned that Boehner last week said immigration reform is “absolutely not” dead and emphasized that those remarks were “good news.”
“I believe the Speaker is sincere,” Obama said. “I think he genuinely wants to get it done. And I think that’s something to be thankful for this week.”
Obama also said other House Republicans feel the same way, echoing the remarks of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who said his “Republican friends” have told him that they wanted to pass various pieces of immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship, that add up to the “full” comprehensive immigration reform package.
Though Boehner has said he would not go to conference on the existing Senate bill, he has not ruled out going to conference on some piecemeal bills. As he did last week, Obama said he did not care if immigration reform was broken up into different pieces so long as all of the pieces that made up comprehensive immigration reform passed.