For the first time this election season, President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney squared off on the hot-button issue of immigration.
Latinos across the country had hoped that an issue they cared deeply about would finally be brought up during the second presidential debate.
For the first time this election season, President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney squared off on the hot-button issue of immigration.
Latinos across the country had hoped that an issue they cared deeply about would finally be brought up during the second presidential debate.
And for 10 minutes, 14 seconds, the two blamed each other for a broken immigration system. Romney said Obama failed the past four years to approve an immigration reform system and Obama blamed Romney for the anti-immigrant rhetoric that is making its way across the country.
“Now when the president ran for office, he said that he’d put in place, in his first year, a piece of legislation — he’d file a bill in his first year that would reform our — our immigration system, protect legal immigration, stop illegal immigration. He didn’t do it,”
Obama sharply attacked Romney’s past comments on immigration– including saying that part of Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 law was a “model for the nation” — and questioned appointing the architect of that law, Kris Kobach, as the presidential candidate’s immigration advisor.
“…It’s very hard for Republican’s in Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama said. “If their standard-bearer has said that, ‘This is not something I’m interested in supporting.’”
Romney said he would give green cards to people who graduate with need skills, but he stressed that illegal immigration needed to stop.
“There are 4 million people who are waiting in line to get here legally. Those who’ve come here illegally take their place,” Romney said. “So I will not grant amnesty to those who have come here illegally.”
Obama said he wanted to streamline the legal immigration system by reducing the backlog and making it easier, simpler and cheaper for people so they could “contribute to our country and that’s good for our economic growth.”
