At a bilingual elementary school in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, President Barack Obama unveiled his $3.9 trillion budget that calls for Congress to pass amnesty. The budget, which is already a month late, calls for immigration reform that provides a pathway to earned citizenship for the nation’s illegal immigrants.
“The Senate has acted to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill that is worthy of support,” Obama wrote in his introductory budget message. “It is time for the House of Representatives to finish the job.”
Obama delivered his remarks at Powell Elementary School, which is described as a “small, community-based school” that is a “finalist for Dual Language School of the Year.”
“Our mission is for every student to reach high levels of academic achievement,” the school’s website states. “Through our Dual Language program (a formal international Spanish Academy), students have the opportunity to become biliterate/bilingual in English and Spanish while acquiring the skills they need to live and work with others in a global society.”
At the school, Obama claimed that his budget could reduce the deficit by reforming the “tax code and our immigration system.”
Though Obama’s budget says that immigration reform will lead to more growth and the administration will crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, it does not mention that the Congressional Budget Office determined that the Senate’s immigration bill Obama is pushing would lower the wages of American workers. Nor does it note that the Obama administration has been slashing the fines levied on businesses that have been caught hiring illegal immigrants.
Obama said that getting amnesty legislation passed was his biggest goal of last year, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) recently said that he and Obama agreed most on immigration in their recent meeting at the White House.
After the House GOP released its immigration principles, though, conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed it as amnesty and, as Breitbart News has reported, “that made GOP leaders in both chambers retreat, vowing that immigration reform would not go forward until President Barack Obama could be trusted on enforcing any new immigration laws.”
Democrats like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have said that this year would be amnesty legislation’s last chance.