President Barack Obama is this week touring the West Coast, beginning with a visit to San Francisco in order to talk about immigration reform and raise campaign money. On Sunday night Obama headlined two fundraising events in Seattle before flying to San Francisco yesterday morning to talk about immigration while visiting the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center. He will then attend two Democratic National Committee fundraisers after speaking in San Francisco, according to USA Today.
During one of the fundraisers in Seattle Obama blamed the House of Representatives for being a “barrier to progress” when it comes to the issue of immigration reform and that consensus could be achieved if only partisan politics could be put to one side, the New York Daily News reports.
The Senate, which is led by the Democrats, passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill back in June, but it has failed to make any progress in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republican Party. Many Republicans have complained that the immigration bill is offering amnesty to people who have broken the law by providing a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants. “I’m not a particularly ideological person,” Obama noted, saying that policies of such importance need to be handled pragmatically.
Immigration reform “is going to happen,” according to Republican Kevin McCarthy last week, but he still refused to lay out anything approximating a timetable for when any bill will actually go to a vote.