Obama Calls Out GOP on Immigration Reform

President Obama culminated a seemingly out-of-the-blue push this week on immigration reform with a speech today criticizing Republicans for "political posturing" on the issue. "Under the pressures of partisanship and election-year politics, many of the 11 (Republicans) who have voted for reform in past have backed away," the president said, adding that nothing will get passed without Republican votes. "That is the political and mathematical reality."

Other points, as per ABC, AP, and the Wall Street Journal:

• He unveiled no new policies but said there must be a middle ground between blanket deportations and blanket immunity.
• He called Arizona's law "ill-conceived" because it puts "huge pressures on local law enforcement to enforce rules that ultimately are unenforceable."
• "Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country," he said. "Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. Its a matter of faith, of shared fidelity to the ideas and values that we hold so dear."

(More President Obama stories.)