President Barack Obama has been doing everything he can to get an overhaul of the nation's immigration system into law as soon as possible. After the Senate passed a bi-partisan bill addressing immigration it appeared as if a law might be imminent, Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has now made it clear that swift immigration reform will not happen, according to CBS News.
Speaking in June President Obama spoke about the need to get immigration reform done quickly.
"This week, the Senate will consider a common-sense, bi-partisan bill that is the best chance we've had in years to fix our broken immigration system," President Obama said. "To truly deal with this issue Congress needs to act. And that moment is now."
Boehner has said that he wouldn't bring the bill up in the House unless it was supported by at least half of the Republicans, then he said that the Senate bill won't be considered at all in the House. Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation" Boehner refused to answer a question about whether the House would consider an immigration bill featuring a path to citizenship.
"The House does not like the Senate Bill. It's one big massive bill that, in my opinion doesn't have enough serious triggers to protect our borders," Boehner said on "Face the Nation." "We're dealing with this in a commonsense, step-by-step approach. We want to deal in chunks, chunks that the members can deal with and grapple with and frankly chunks that the American people can get their arms around."
Throughout the show Boehner would not reveal what he expects to see in a House immigration bill, only that he expects it to not be a large comprehensive bill like the Senate version, according to Reuters.
"It's not about me, it's not about what I want," Boehner said. "This is about allowing the House to work its will. If I come out and say, 'I'm for this and I'm for that,' all I'm doing is making my job harder."
The host of "Face the Nation" asked Boehner how he felt about presiding over one of the least liked and least-productive congresses in the history of the U.S. Boehner defended both the lack of legislation passed by Congress and the lack of popularity.
"We should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws that we repeal," Boehner said. "We've got more laws than the administration could ever enforce. We deal with what the American people want us to deal with. Unpopular? Yes. Why? We're in a divided government."
