Speaking with Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained that President Obama would keep his promise to use his executive authority to enact immigration reform, but cautioned that he had not made a final decision on the numbers of illegal immigrants to which it would apply.
Ramos told Earnest that immigration reform activists would be upset if Obama’s executive action would only help two million illegal immigrants, encouraging the President to be bold and apply it to up to seven million.
“Well, Jorge, the President hasn’t made a final decision yet, so I’m going to shy away from making any numbers,” Earnest said.
Earnest argued that reform for two million illegal immigrants was not timid.
“If we’re in the position where we think that changing the lives of two million immigrants to this country is timid…I don’t think that’s most people’s definition of timid,” he replied.
Earnest also cautioned that Obama’s executive power would not completely fix what he characterized as a broken immigration system.
“That won’t solve everything, but it will make a substantial impact on our economy, and it will make a substantial impact on the lives of millions of immigrants in this country who are ready to come out of the shadows and find a path to citizenship,” Earnest concluded.
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