Obama Tells House Republicans Passing Immigration Reform is the 'Smart Thing to Do'

On Thursday, President Obama urged House Republicans to pass immigration reform this year, calling it “the smart thing to do.” The president noted that while Democrats and Republicans have “some really big disagreements” on certain issues, “that's no reason that we shouldn’t be able to work together on the things that we do agree on.”

“We should pass immigration reform. It’s good for our economy. It’s good for our national security. It’s good for our people. And we should do it this year,” Obama said.

Following the partial government shutdown, which ended last week, the Obama administration has been keen on pushing immigration reform. “It’s no secret that the American people haven’t seen much out of Washington that they like these days,” Obama said during his speech.

“The shutdown and the threat of the first default in more than 200 years inflicted real pain on our businesses and on families across the country. And it was a completely unnecessary, self-inflicted wound with real costs to real people, and it can never happen again.”

Obama called on Congress to work towards passing a “responsible budget,” a farm bill and immigration reform, calling the current immigration system “broken.”

“It’s not smart to invite some of the brightest minds from around the world to study here and then not let them start businesses here -- we send them back to their home countries to start businesses and create jobs and invent new products someplace else,” Obama said.

He added that it did not make sense to have 11 million undocumented immigrants “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.”

“So this isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do,” the president continued. “Securing our borders; modernizing our legal immigration system; providing a pathway to earned, legalized citizenship; growing our economy; strengthening our middle class; reducing our deficits -- that’s what common-sense immigration reform will do.”

However, some House Republicans oppose giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, as USA Today reports. House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman Brendan Buck told reporters, “The speaker agrees that America has a broken immigration system and we need reform that would boost our economy. He’s also been clear that the House will not consider any massive, ‘Obamacare’-style legislation that no one understands.”

During his remarks, the president said that if House Republicans “have new and different, additional ideas for how we should move forward, then we want to hear them.”

He concluded, “We’ve got the time to do it. Republicans in the House, including the Speaker, have said we should act. So let’s not wait. It doesn’t get easier to just put it off. Let’s do it now. Let’s not delay. Let’s get this done, and let’s do it in a bipartisan fashion.”