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Weekly Address: President Obama “Expanding Trade and Fixing our Immigration System”

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From the White House – Weekly Address

President Obama describes the incredible opportunities to create middle-class jobs in America by deepening our economic ties and expanding trade in Latin America and discusses recent Senate bill that takes commonsense steps to fix our broken immigration system.

Transcript Fixing our Immigration System and Expanding Trade in Latin America –

Hi, everybody.  Today, I’m speaking to you from the road – a trip to Mexico and Costa Rica.

I’m here because Latin America represents an incredible opportunity for the United States, especially when it comes to my top priority as President: creating good, middle-class jobs.

On Friday, we learned that our businesses created another 176,000 jobs last month.  That’s 2.2 million new jobs over the past year, and 6.8 million new jobs over the past 38 months.

But as I’ve said before, I won’t be satisfied until everyone who wants a job can find one. So I’m going to keep doing everything I can and going everywhere I need to go to help our businesses create jobs.

Now, one of the best ways to grow our economy is to sell more goods and services Made in America to the rest of the world.  That includes our neighbors to the south.

Right now, over 40 percent of our exports go to the Americas.  And those exports are growing faster than our trade with the rest of the world.  That’s why I visited Latin America this week – to work with leaders to deepen our economic ties and expand trade between our nations.

In Mexico, I also talked about immigration reform, because that’s an important issue that affects both our countries.

The truth is, right now, our border with Mexico is more secure than it’s been in years.  We’ve put more boots on that border than at any time in our history, and illegal crossings are down by nearly 80 percent from their peak in 2000.  But we’ve got more to do – not just to secure the border but to fix an immigration system that is badly broken.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a commonsense immigration reform bill introduced in the Senate.  This bill is a compromise, which means that nobody got everything they wanted – including me.  But it’s largely consistent with the principles I’ve laid out from the beginning.

It would continue to strengthen security at our borders and hold employers more accountable if they knowingly hire undocumented workers.

It would provide a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million individuals who are already in this country illegally.

And it would modernize our legal immigration system so that we’re able to reunite families and attract the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers who will help create good paying jobs and grow our economy.

These are all commonsense steps that the majority of Americans support.  So there’s no reason that immigration reform can’t become a reality this year.

In the meantime, I’ll keep working with our neighbors on our common security and our common prosperity.  Millions of Americans earn a living right now because of the trade between our nations.  And after this week, I’m as confident as ever that we can build on our shared heritage and values to open more markets for American businesses and create more jobs for American workers.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Bolding added


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36 comments

  1. JanF

    President Obama delivers remarks at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

    Joint Statement between the United States and Mexico

    At the invitation of President Enrique Peña Nieto, President Barack Obama travelled to Mexico City on May 2-3 to discuss the broad range of bilateral, regional, and global issues that bind the United States and Mexico and touch the daily lives of citizens of both countries. Building on their positive initial meeting in Washington, D.C. last November, the two Presidents renewed their commitment to the United States-Mexico relationship.

    Looking ahead to the next 4 years during which their presidencies will overlap, the two leaders noted the importance of taking advantage of opportunities and harnessing the enthusiasm and optimism that a new stage in bilateral relations brings. The Presidents underscored the strategic importance of the bilateral relationship and expressed a desire for even greater cooperation between their two nations. Specifically, the Presidents focused on: 1) economic competitiveness; 2) people-to-people connections; 3) leadership on regional and global issues; and 4) citizen security.

  2. slksfca

    It’s going to be very interesting to see how immigration gets dealt with (or not) by Congress.

    I am not one of those people who hope the Republicans obstruct any meaningful reform just because that might hurt them at the polls. Mind you, if they do get into trouble at the next election because of their intransigeance, I won’t shed a tear. But I’d rather have a functioning legislature — AND see at least some measure of justice for immigrants.

  4. princesspat

    Q. & A. With David Axelrod

    Q.If the president asks you, “How do we retake the House?” what would your advice be?

    A.The first thing to recognize is that there are only a handful of genuinely swing districts, maybe two dozen. You have to focus your efforts on those.

    No. 2: The reason why you have a different result in the presidential elections has a lot to do with turnout. The great challenge for the Democratic Party is, how you reduce the big gap between who votes in presidential elections and who votes in Congressional elections. The mid-term electorate is older, it’s whiter. The youth vote was 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, 19 percent in 2012, but it was only 12 percent in 2010.

    So the question is, how do we motivate those voters who made a difference for the Democratic Party in the presidential years to think it’s important enough to participate? That’s where we need to use some of the technology that’s been developed to really target those voters and get them involved.

    This is an interesting interview. When Dem’s win with larger majorities in local and state races as well their ability to govern will be more real.  

  5. JanF

    April 30: First Lady Michelle Obama Announces New Hiring Commitments for Veterans and Military Spouses

    Two years ago, President Obama announced a challenge to the private sector to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013.

    Today, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden, and Dr. Jill Biden all participated in a Joining Forces Employment event at the White House.

    The First Lady announced that America’s businesses nearly tripled the goal set by President Obama and did so eight months early. The private sector has already hired or trained 290,000 veterans and military spouses.

    The First Lady also announced that American companies have committed to hire or train another 435,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years.

    The First Lady also shared the stories of veterans who have successfully transitioned into second careers. For example, she shared the story of Staff Sergeant Shaun Murphy, an Army veteran who taught sixth grade special education in Delaware for Teach for America. Today, he leads TFA’s efforts to hire more veterans as teachers.  He said, “When you hang up those fatigues and put those boots away, you don’t want to feel like you’ve given up your sense of service.”

  7. HappyinVT

    I almost wrecked the car laughing at this bit …

    These are all commonsense steps that the majority of Americans support.  So there’s no reason that immigration reform can’t become a reality this year.

    I love the dude and I certainly don’t think he thinks it is a slam dunk but even verbalizing such optimism makes me wonder if that 2 am buzz (think WHCD) is that far in his past.  🙂

  8. Melanie in IA

    President Obama: But as I’ve said before, I won’t be satisfied until everyone who wants a job can find one.

    Dave: First off I’m initiating a program to try to find a decent job for every American who wants one.

    and more…

    Dave: If you’ve ever seen the look on somebody’s face the day they finally get a job, I’ve had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it’s about respect, it’s about looking in the mirror and knowing that you’ve done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don’t really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try.  

    and a little more:

    Dave: We’ve got water we can’t drink and air we can’t breathe. We’ve got bars on our windows and graffiti on our doors. If you get sick you can’t afford to go to the doctor and if you get laid off you can’t find a new job.  We’re trillions of dollar in debt.  Our roads are cracking, our bridges are crumbling and everything we used to build is made in Japan. We’ve got people sleeping in cardboard boxes, and ten-year-old kids who are doing drugs. We’ve been living together for four hundred years, and we’re still trying to kill each other…  But that isn’t even the worst part.  The worst part is we feel like we can’t do anything about it.

    I love Dave. One of my favorite movies. 1993. Here we are 20 years later and every part of it still holds true, except the part about Japan. Substitute China and it still works.  

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