Obama holds meeting with religious leaders on Immigration

US President Barack Obama today convened a meeting of religious leaders to hold discussion on the immigration reform as he looked to ratchet up pressure on House Republicans to take the bill this year.

Washington: US Presidnt Barack Obama today convened a meeting of religious leaders to hold discussion on the immigration reform as he looked to ratchet up pressure on House Republicans to take the bill this year.

All the attendees were Christian leaders.

During the meeting in his Oval Office, the White House said, Obama discussed the importance of taking action to pass commonsense immigration reform.

"The faith leaders shared with the President stories about the impact the failure to fix the immigration system has on families in their congregations and communities," the White House said.

The list of six religious leaders provided by the White House showed that all were Christian leaders.
"The President expressed deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system. He emphasized that while his Administration can take steps to better enforce and administer immigration laws, nothing can replace the certainty of legislative reform and this permanent solution can only be achieved by Congress," the White House said.

Obama and the religious leaders expressed their longstanding commitment to immigration reform as a moral imperative and pledged to continue to urge? Congress to act on reform as soon as possible.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney later told reporters that the meeting demonstrates and reinforces the fact that there is a broad, unusually broad, coalition that supports that effort, that supports comprehensive immigration reform and all the benefits that making reform the law would provide to the country, to the security, to economy and to the American businesses.

"And that support includes many in the faith community and it includes those in business, those in law enforcement and it includes -- the coalition is broad and disparate and it is not the kind of coalition that you see come together very often in Washington, and I think it highlights the isolation that House Republicans find themselves in when so many, not just politicians or advocacy leaders, but folks across the country support doing the right thing here," Carney said.

"And the irony, of course, is that there is a really strong conservative argument to be made on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform," he said in response to a question.

The meeting with six faith leaders came as House Democrats announced an initiative to target 30 Republicans who have voiced some support for immigration reform, in hopes of winning over support for a discharge petition that would allow a floor vote on the Senate`s bipartisan immigration reform bill.

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