Obama quote misused on FB by the Rethugs

A RWNJ posted in my newsfeed part of a 2005 speech where he said we can't allow people to pour into the US undetected, undocumented, unchecked. I found the rest of the speech and posted it:

Obama said that his aim was to bring the debate toward the sensible center” through “pragmatic, comprehensive reform.”

He did, in fact, deride those “who enter the country illegally,” saying they are “showing disregard for those who are following the law.”

But Obama then pivoted to make two other points.

“Having said that, securing the borders alone does not solve immigration management,” he said. “We’re going to have to better manage legal immigration in order to end illegal immigration. .?.?. Right now we’ve got millions of illegal immigrants who live and work here without knowing their identity or background. That’s part of the reason we need a guest worker program to replace the flood of illegals with a regulated stream of legals who enter the United States after checks and with access to labor rights.”


Obama then turned to “a third principle,” which he said “is most important.”

“If we hope to bring the 11 million existing undocumented workers out of the shadows into the open, we have to give them a reason,” Obama said. “I am sympathetic, and I understand people’s frustrations with respect to those who have come here illegally, but we have to understand that they are now here, they are paying taxes, they are raising families, many of their children are U.S. citizens who were born here and are going to school here, and if we are going to get some handle on that population, then we’ve got to give them some incentive in order to come out into the open.”

“This means that we’re going to have to grant them some sort of interim legal status to work with the opportunity to eventually earn citizenship,” Obama said.


In a 2006 speech on the Senate floor, Obama sounded even less like Trump, asserting that “while security might start at our borders, it doesn’t end there.”

He continued: “In fact, I will not support any bill that does not provide this earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population — not just for humanitarian reasons; not just because these people, having broken the law, did so for the best of motives, to try and provide a better life for their children and their grandchildren; but also because this is the only practical way we can get a handle on the population that is within our borders right now."

(This is from The Washington Post but I can't do a link)