Here’s the exchange between Josh Bolten and Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday:
WALLACE: One of the
hot-button issues that you’ve got to deal with now is immigration
reform. Does the president worry that the immigrant boycott that is
scheduled for tomorrow plus this whole development involving the
Spanish Star-Spangled Banner ? does he worry that that could create a
backlash and make it even harder to pass sensible immigration reform?BOLTEN:I don’t know what effect those particular events are likely to have,
but in fact, the president does want to try to bring this very
difficult issue to some kind of consensus. He said that to a
bipartisan, and very bipartisan, group of senators in a meeting last
week.It’s
a very emotional issue. There are ways to solve the enormous illegal
immigration problem that we have in this country, but I think only if
we tone down the very emotional rhetoric on both sides of it and come
to some consensus position in the middle.WALLACE:How active, and I mean not just in having a meeting, but getting into
the legislative details, does the president plan to be in getting
immigration reform passed by Congress?And
specifically, does he support the concept in the leading Senate bill,
the idea that illegals that have been here longer, say five years,
should get an easier, quicker path to citizenship than illegals who
have been here a shorter period of time?BOLTEN:Well, the president was deeply engaged even this past week when he met
with the members. They were talking details. I won’t try to negotiate
on television about what the specifics might be.But
the president does believe in a temporary worker program that makes it
possible for a willing foreign worker to be matched up with a willing
American employer for jobs that Americans are typically not available
to do. We need to do that on a basis that gives comfort to everybody
concerned.We
need to make sure that the people who come in, for example, would ?
into this program, if they’ve been here illegally, would, for example,
pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, follow our laws, and then
get in the back of the line for possible citizenship, if that’s what
they want to pursue, because the one thing the president doesn’t want
to do in this process is disadvantage the people who have been playing
by the rules and are in line to try to come in here legally.