WASHINGTON: Presenting a powerful moral argument that America is and will always be a nation of immigrants, US President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would exercise his executive prerogative to protect nearly four million undocumented immigrants from deportation while streamlining procedures to retain in the US skilled foreign tech students and workers, many of whom are from China and India.
In a 15-minute prime time address to the nation, Obama invoked some of the most fundamental ideals of the United States to make his case, reminding those who opposed immigration that, "We were strangers once, too."
"Whether our forbears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like or what our last names are, or how we worship," he told Americans, many of who have forgotten they were immigrants too.
While the President's executive orders will largely pertain to an estimated 4.1 million undocumented parents of US-born children (and therefore citizens) and about 300,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the US illegally as children, he also announced broad procedural changes that will make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to the American economy in a transparent effort to maintain US edge over other nations.
In a 15-minute prime time address to the nation, Obama invoked some of the most fundamental ideals of the United States to make his case, reminding those who opposed immigration that, "We were strangers once, too."
"Whether our forbears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like or what our last names are, or how we worship," he told Americans, many of who have forgotten they were immigrants too.
While the President's executive orders will largely pertain to an estimated 4.1 million undocumented parents of US-born children (and therefore citizens) and about 300,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the US illegally as children, he also announced broad procedural changes that will make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to the American economy in a transparent effort to maintain US edge over other nations.
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