Hitting out obliquely at some of the Republican presidential candidates, notably front-runner Donald Trump, for their anti-immigrant vitriol, President Barack Obama has sought to make the case for a more immigrant-friendly regime, commenting: “America’s greatness does not come from building walls.”
“Our greatness comes from building opportunity….Our greatness comes from a dream that says in this country, if you work hard, you can build a better life for your family. No matter where you come from. No matter what you look like. No matter what your last name is. That’s what makes America great,” Obama said to cheers at a Hispanic gathering in Washington.
Without naming Trump or other Republican contenders taking a hard line on immigration, Obama said what America needs is an immigration system that is “fair and orderly and lawful”, adding: “I believe that people who come here illegally should have to pay a fine, and pay their fair share of taxes, and get registered, and get right with the law and go to the back of the line before they earn citizenship.”
With his ambitious immigration overhaul stalled in the Republican-controlled US Congress for nearly two years, Obama commented that the anti-immigrant sentiment infecting American politics is not new, but it is wrong.
Once upon a time, it was directed at Irish folk, then against Italians. “There have been generations of immigrants that have been subject to this same kind of attitude —with some of the same stereotypes. It wasn’t right then; it’s not right now,” he said, remarking: “Unless you were one of the first Americans, unless you’re Navajo or Cherokee, somebody somewhere came from someplace else.”
In a clear reference to Trump’s aggressive stance and the broad Republican approach on immigration, Obama commented: “You can’t just feed on fear. You should be feeding hope. You should be for fixing our immigration system.” America, he said, would have been much better off “if Republican politicians hadn’t spent years
precisely trying to scare voters with tales of immigrants flooding across our borders and taking our jobs, and destroying America as we know it”.
He went on taunt the Republicans by recalling what his Republican predecessor George W. Bush himself had commented on the subject: “We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone’s fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain.”
Apart from Trump, Obama sought to target another Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Marco Rubio, who was a member of the bipartisan panel that came up with the immigration reform package that was adopted by the Senate in 2013, but was never taken up by the House of Representatives. “Now some of the very same Republican politicians who championed reform in the past — some of whom sponsored these efforts — suddenly they want nothing to do with it,” Obama said in an apparent reference to Rubio’s current stance as a candidate.