President Obama Declares Commitment to Immigration & Health Care Reform
During his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama once again reiterated his commitment to revamping this nation's broken immigration and health care systems. Below is a statement from Tyler Moran, policy director of the National Immigration Law Center:
"Immigration reform that leads to the legalization of families and gives workers the ability to exercise their rights will raise the standard of living for all workers in our country. In a time of increasingly tenuous economic recovery, decisive action that benefits all workers is more important now than ever before.
"Congress must answer the president's call and pass a bill that reforms a system that has for too long failed to meet the needs of our economy and society. Our current practice of enacting enforcement-only policies ? whether they come in the form of raids or audits ? only tears families apart.
"The president also rightly called for a health reform bill that will bring down premiums and cover the uninsured. For low-income immigrant communities, current reform proposals threaten to make health care prohibitively expensive and shut many families out. Congress can and should create a system that is both economically sound and inclusive."