Obama Statement on the Senate’s Failure to Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ben LaBolt
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today released the following statement following the Senate vote on immigration reform:
“I am very disappointed by our failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This crisis demands that we take action. Holes remain in our borders. Millions of undocumented immigrants persist in the shadows. And the marches will continue across the nation until we muster the political will to pass comprehensive reform that protects our security, bolsters our economy, and preserves America's tradition as a nation of immigrants who are welcomed as long as they work hard and play by the rules.”
“The bill in the Senate was imperfect. The guestworker program and the points system devaluing family reunification were flawed, and more needed to be done to ensure that we have a workable system for verifying who is eligible to work in this country. But the bill did contain important elements, such as stronger border control and a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants – proposals that the majority of Americans support and the execution of which the country can ill afford to postpone.”
“For the past two weeks, I have worked with my colleagues to fix the problems in this bill. And, I believe that we could have reached agreement in the Senate and sent the bill to the House for further improvements. Unfortunately, after repeated efforts, it is clear that this debate would not reach resolution here today. I remain hopeful, however, that the Senate will revisit this issue in the near future because we have a responsibility to fix our broken immigration system.”