'America is not an oligarchy,' Republican Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions complained on Monday.
'Congressional leaders must forcefully reject the notion, evidently accepted by the President, that a small cadre of CEOs can tailor the nation’s entire immigration policy to suit their narrow interests.'
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Obama spoke at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco, where he is scheduled to appear at two Democratic fundraisers before flying to Los Angeles for more cash-collection events
Obama, Sessions noted, 'is preparing to hold a fundraiser with Silicon Valley executives, a group clamoring for more guest workers at a time when nearly half of recent college grads are underemployed.'
Obama, however, said immigration reform is 'the smart thing to do' economically, claiming it 'would boost our economy and shrink our deficits.'
Some in the GOP, most notably Senate moderates, have made their peace with proposals that would give legal residency to people who live in the U.S. illegally and put many on a path to citizenship.
But House hard-liners have embraced an over-our-dead-bodies approach, holding out for tougher enforcement and tighter border security as a condition of any new law.
Obama is on a West Coast fundraising swing, appearing at seven separate events to collect cash for Democrats. But in order to justify the government expense involved with travel for the better part of a week, the White House scheduled one policy speech at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center and another at Dreamworks, the film studio, in Los Angeles.
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation estimates that it costs $176,000 per hour to operate Air Force One, the president's private aircraft.
Speaking to reporters on board the plane on Monday, Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed that 'there is strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for common-sense immigration reform.'
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Citizen engagement: Obama turned to talk with the agitator while the audience of 600 waited
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Immigration activists like thee in Atlanta have taken protests directly to ICE's offices, insisting that the government should stop departing illegal immigrants
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/...55_634x543.jpg Surprise! Obama is the undisputed king of illegal-immigrant deportations, but is now calling for a new national policy
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Monday's heavily stage-managed event managed to let some protesters through, despite the White House's best efforts to control the president's image
'The only thing that’s blocking that right now is not one party, it’s one faction of one party.' He complained of 'significant consequences for our economy' if an immigration reform bill does not reach the president's desk.
Obama faces discontent from immigration activists who demand an immediate halt to deportations, which have reached all-time high numbers since his first inauguration.
In 2011 alone, the Obama administration sent 392,000 illegal immigrants back to their home countries, according to statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.
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Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions complained that an 'oligarchy' of business titans is trying to manipulate immigration policy to serve their own narrow interests
But Sen. Sessions, the most senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, warned Monday that Obama has a 'dismal record on immigration.'
'During his time in office, the president has systematically dismantled interior enforcement, handcuffing immigration officers and bypassing Congress. ... No agreement should be entered into while such lawlessness continues.'
Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, raised hackles among border guards inside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency when he weighed on immigration in this month.
Chris Crane, President of the National ICE Council, criticized him on Monday for supporting the immigration bill that passed in the Senate earlier this year.
'Why did you support a bill, S. 744, which legalizes aliens with extensive criminal records, including sex offenders, gang members and other violent and dangerous criminal aliens?' he asked.
'Until Mr. Zuckerberg meets with officers and learns the truth about our immigration system, I would respectfully suggest he suspend his lobbying activities.'
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said Sunday on the CBS 'Face the Nation' program that the GOP will ultimately back some sort of reform, but with conditions attached that the Senate may not like.
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Chris Crane, President of the National ICE Council, criticized Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for supporting Senate legislation that 'legalizes aliens with extensive criminal records, including sex offenders, gang members and other violent and dangerous criminal aliens'
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Obama is in San Francsisco to attend fundraisers, and squeezed a single policy speech into his itinerary to justify the government's travel expenses on the political trip
'Immigration reform is going to happen,' McCarthy said, 'but it’s going to happen in a step-by-step method. ... We have a broken process – the immigration system, it is broken. It needs to be fixed.'
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Bone of contention: The Rio Grande River marks the U.S.-Mexico Border with Juarez, Mexico on the left (south) side and El Paso, Texas on the right (north). Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the border here every week
Those steps include new border security measures, including spending billions to wall off America's southern border with Mexico. Also on the GOP's wish list is a system of enforcement that will stop the annual release of thousands of criminal aliens from immigration detention facilities.
Obama has seemingly endorsed these measures, but won't agree to implement them in advance of establishing 'an earned path to citizenship' – what some in the GOP see as an amnesty for as many as 11 million lawbreakers.
House Republicans lack a political incentive to act any time soon, since only a handful have enough Latino constituents to pose a re-election risk in 2014.
A poll released Monday by the nonpartisan
Public Religion Research Institute found that most Americans – including a majority of Republicans – support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But barely one-third of Republicans say there's enough urgency in the problem to suggest that it should be addressed in the coming few years.
Obama also lacks the long coat-tails that marked his first term in office. His is a damaged brand, reeling from the failures of Obamacare and leaking political capital in the wake of a nuclear deal with Iran that has polarized Capitol Hill.
But he insisted Monday that 'everybody wins if we get this done.'
'It's up to Republicans in the House to decide if we can move forward ... If they don't want to see it happen, they've got to explain why.'
