Obama's 'out of nowhere' immigration speech

Can Obama deliver comprehensive immigration reform?

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last updated 8 January 2015

In his first major speech on immigration — a policy priority that has seemingly come "out of nowhere" in the past week — President Obama called for comprehensive reform legislation, including a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants. "The question now is, do we have the courage and political will to pass a bill through Congress and finally get it done," the president said, speaking at American University on Thursday. He decried Arizona's yet-to-be-enacted immigration law as "ill-conceived," and called for "one clear national standard." Clearly, this "puts Republicans in a tough spot," say Anna Gorman and Peter Nicholas in the Los Angeles Times. They really can't "afford to write off a Latino community" ahead of the November midterms. But the president didn't offer any specifics, says Mark Krikorian at National Review. "The speech was just one more effort at stringing the open-borders folks along while trying to blame the Republicans for not helping the Democrats pass an amnesty." Below, highlights from Obama's address: