Obama pitches immigration policies at Miami town hall
President Obama waves as he boards Air Force One en route to Miami.(Photo: Jose Luis Magana, AP)MIAMI — With his immigration programs getting hammered by the courts in Texas and Republicans in Washington, President Obama was scheduled to defend his executive actions today at a town hall event at Florida International University.A federal judge in Texas blocked the president's order to protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans edged closer to a partial government shutdown as they use a Department of Homeland Security funding bill to halt the president's actions.Against that backdrop, Obama is scheduled to speak at an "immigration town hall" sponsored by MSNBC and Telemundo at FIU, a highly diverse school with many international students.Jose Machado, 19, said he has plenty to be angry with the president about. The law student at nearby Miami Dade College only received his green card because his mother was deported to their native Nicaragua, leaving him behind in foster care where he became eligible to become a legal permanent resident."He's deported 2 million people, and we will never forget that," he said.But Machado hopes Obama receives a warm welcome Wednesday because of everything he has done recently to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. From creating a 2012 program that has protected more than 600,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation to his November announcement that he wanted to protect 5 million more, Machado said Obama has more than recovered in his eyes."I hope no one boos him today," he said. "That would have been justified before, but I think he has corrected those actions. I hope he gets the credit he deserves."Republicans said the timing of the president's town hall — right in the middle of the critical funding battle in Washington — shows how Obama is more worried about the politics of immigration than finding a solution with Congress."President Obama tells Americans he wants to work with Republicans, but his actions don't live up to reality," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ali Pardo.Others said he could have used the opportunity to meet with Republicans from Miami who have been supportive of passing the kind of comprehensive immigration bill Obama claims to support.One of those, Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., spoke about the need for immigration legislation as the Spanish-language GOP response to the president's State of the Union address last month. While he was invited to Wednesday's event, he said he was not offered a ride on Air Force One, a gesture often offered when a president is visiting a congressman's district.Another Republican who has worked for years on immigration legislation, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said he wasn't even invited to the event."I can only hope that next time President Obama graces Miami with his presence to discuss the issue, he'll reach out to those he knows have been leading the effort to fix our broken immigration system," Diaz-Balart said.White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that Obama is "doing what presidents are supposed to do, which is traveling across the country and talking about their priorities for the country. And there is no question that one of the president's priorities is reforming our broken immigration system because of the positive benefits it would have for reducing our deficit, for expanding economic growth, for creating jobs, and for actually making our borders and our country more secure."Some waiting in line said they had no problem with the president leaving Washington when time is running out for a solution to the Department of Homeland Security's funding. Gaby Garcia-Vera, one of the first to arrive for Wednesday's event, said the town hall could serve as a good reminder of the people who will be hurt by any halt to Obama's immigration actions."It's good that the president is here because we have to bring it back to our communities," said Garcia-Vera, a field coordinator for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. "We know that it's important to uplift the narrative that those people are important because they're the most marginalized in our communities."The forum should also provide Obama an opportunity to address another historic action he's taken recently: the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. Negotiators from the two countries are set to meet for the second time at the U.S. State Department in Washington on Friday after a round of talks in Havana last month.South Florida is home to nearly 1 million Cuban-Americans and the heart of that exile community in the United States. Many have expressed outrage over Obama's decision to break a 50-year freeze in relations with the communist country, but many younger Cuban-Americans have supported the president's move.Will ice, snow shut down the South...again?Feb 25, 2015
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