President Barack Obama delivers remarks on immigration reform in the East Room of the White House, June 11, 2013.
(Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)
As President Obama made clear earlier today the bipartisan, commonsense immigration reform bill being considered by the Senate this week is the best chance we’ve had in years to fix our broken immigration system – in large part because of the diverse and unusual coalition of stakeholders that have come together to support it. That coalition has united business and labor leaders, Republican and Democratic elected officials, the technology sector, law enforcement officers, faith and civil rights leaders, DREAMers and the many other stakeholders who agree that, while they may not see eye to eye on every issue, commonsense immigration reform is critical to our nation’s economic growth, competitiveness and national security.
After the President spoke, these different stakeholders all shared why they have joined forces to support the Senate’s bill and fight to make bipartisan, commonsense immigration reform a reality for generations to come. Check out a roundup of their comments below:
“On behalf of the American business community, I would like to thank the President for his remarks today and his vigorous support for a common-sense immigration bill and for gathering together the people that are behind me who represent a broad section of American society. We disagree on a lot of things, but we vigorously agree on a bill that makes common sense and takes people out of the shadows and provides for our economy the people we need to move forward. We’re looking forward to today’s vote and working through the summer to get this thing done.” — Tom Donohue, President and CEO, US Chamber of Commerce
“This is a start-up nation. Almost half of our Fortune 500 companies, as the President said, were started either by first- or second-generation immigrants. So it’s very important that we continue to be a magnet for talent, that we really become the place that people want to start companies and start industries because that's the best way to drive our economy, the best way to drive our economic growth, the best way to drive down our unemployment. We’ve got to make sure that we are able to attract those risk-takers, the pioneers who really believe in America as the most entrepreneurial nation in the world.” — Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution LLC
“For every 100 foreign workers we have, we create 40 jobs for U.S. citizens. I met a restaurant owner the other day who has three restaurants. He said, if I could find enough workers I would have eight restaurants. You can multiply that by hundreds of thousands — that’s what happening in our economy today. The single-biggest thing we can do for our economy is to pass this immigration bill. This is first and foremost an economic bill, and to not pass this bill is to deny our economy the recovery and the growth and the prosperity that it warrants.” — Carlos Gutierrez, former Secretary of Commerce
Fonte: White House