SAN FRANCISCO — With a diverse mix of immigrants lined up behind him, President Barack Obama set out in a speech Monday to hold House Republicans’ feet to the fire for obstructing immigration reform. Instead he felt the heat himself as activists given places of honor heckled him for his administration’s record number of deportations.
In an extraordinary example of how Obama often has been blindsided of late, the president turned to look back at what was supposed to be a panorama of supportive faces to find Ju Hong, a 24-year-old South Korean immigrant, shouting: “I need your help.” Hong said families like his are being torn apart, and urged Obama to use his executive power to stop it. “Stop deportations, yes we can,” Hong and others chanted, stunning the 400 people gathered for the speech at the Betty Ong Chinese Recreation Center.
Obama quickly called off Secret Service agents who had moved to remove the demonstrators.
“I respect the passion of these young people because they feel deeply about the concerns for their families,” Obama said. “If, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so.
“But we’re also a nation of laws, that’s part of our tradition,” he continued. “And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I’m proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal.”
With his job approval ratings near their nadir amid the botched technology and political pressures of the new health care law’s rollout, Obama sought safe haven in a region he has always counted on for support. He barnstormed the Bay Area to try to return immigration to the headlines and to raise money for Democrats. Yet even at one of those fundraisers, an audience member’s urging that he use executive powers to bypass a gridlocked Congress seemed to underscore that this president is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
Obama framed immigration reform as a moral and economic necessity in order for the nation to reach its potential. On Thanksgiving this Thursday, millions of American families will recall and retell their tales of immigration and self-sacrifice so their children could have better lives, he said.
“What makes us American is our shared belief in certain enduring principles, our allegiance to a set of ideals, to a creed, to the enduring promise of this country,” he said. “The only thing standing in our way right now is the unwillingness of certain Republicans in Congress to catch up with the rest of the country.”
Reform must include everything from stronger border security and holding employers accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, to eliminating the family-visa backlog, attracting more skilled entrepreneurs, and “providing a pathway to earned citizenship for those who are living in the shadows,” Obama said. “This isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.”
House Speaker John Boehner said last week that Congress must act on immigration reform, but he has refused to let the Senate-passed bill come up for consideration. His caucus is split over whether reform should include providing a path to citizenship for those already here.
“I believe the speaker is sincere, I think he genuinely wants to get it done,” Obama said Monday, referring to Boehner. “But it’s going to require some courage. There are some members of the Republican caucus who think this is bad politics for them back home.”
“We can’t leave this problem for another generation to solve,” he said. “If we don’t tackle this now, we’re undercutting our own future.”
But Hong — whose mother brought him to this country at age 11, and who has qualified for “deferred action” under the Obama administration’s policy — was not convinced. He and his cohorts are affiliated with a group called ASPIRE, Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education. After the speech, he said it had been “a huge opportunity for me to be here and speak out,” but he felt Obama had resorted to “political talking points” rather than addressing the protesters’ concerns.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Pleasanton, was among several House members at the speech, and later Monday said he understands the protesters’ anger: “Until we pass immigration reform, we’re in a position where we’ve got both sides of the issue unhappy — one side that rightfully thinks we’re not doing enough, and one that fears we’ll do something.”
But some immigration reform advocacy groups said Obama is reaping what he has sown. The Obama administration has deported more immigrants annually than the George W. Bush administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“The president has the power to halt his destructive deportations and must use it now,” said Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org. “Until he stops the deportations, we will only escalate against him and his policies further. He can’t fool us anymore.”
After the speech, Obama headlined a Democratic National Committee fundraising luncheon at the San Francisco Jazz Center before attending another fundraiser at the home of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, with about 30 tech executives who paid $32,400 each. Obama then flew to Los Angeles to headline two more Democratic fundraisers Monday night.
At the jazz center event, Obama spoke about the need to create jobs while restoring the nation’s social safety net.
But when an audience member urged him to proceed by executive order — much as the immigration protesters had in Chinatown — Obama responded, “A lot of people have been saying this lately on every problem. Just sign an executive order and we can … nullify Congress.”
When the audience applauded, he said, “that’s not how it works. … There is no shortcut to politics. There is no shortcut to democracy. We have to win on the merits of the argument … as laborious as it seems sometimes.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Contact him at 510-208-6428. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_richman. Read the Political Blotter at ibabuzz.com/politics.
