Vice President Joe Biden appeared at a citizenship ceremony in Atlanta on Thursday to push for an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system and a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
But his visit to Georgia came amid fresh signals from House Republican leaders that a bipartisan Senate immigration bill won’t go anywhere in Congress this year.
Biden made an economic case for the overhaul during his appearance at the King Center.
“Studies show that, for example, if those 11 million people are let out of the shadows, the GDP of the United States will grow by an additional 5.4 percent over the next five years,” Biden said. “Another $1.7 trillion will be added to the economy. Social Security will be more solvent, not less solvent.”
Biden spoke after 104 people from about 50 countries recited the oath of allegiance to become U.S. citizens. Biden was expected to attend a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Thursday evening at an Atlanta residence, where attendees were donating up to $20,000.
The vice president appeared at the King Center as part of an aggressive campaign by the Obama administration to advance immigration legislation this year. On Tuesday, Biden spoke to Catholic leaders on a conference call about immigration. And last week, Biden and President Barack Obama met with business leaders at the White House concerning immigration legislation.
In June, the Democratic-led Senate passed bipartisan legislation that would boost border security, overhaul the nation’s clogged legal immigration system and provide a 13-year pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Many House Republicans, however, dismiss a pathway to legal status as amnesty for lawbreakers and an invitation for more immigrants to illegally enter the U.S. Republican leaders in the House have refused to take up the Senate bill. Instead, they are taking a piecemeal approach with smaller immigration bills, some focused on border security and interior enforcement.
Critics worry proponents will revive the Senate legislation if House members pass an immigration bill and go to hash out differences with senators in a conference committee. House Speaker John Boehner rejected that idea Wednesday during a Capitol Hill news conference.
“The idea that we are going to take up a 1,300-page bill that no one had ever read, which is what the Senate did, is not going to happen in the House, and frankly I’ll make clear we have no intention of ever going to conference on the Senate bill,” Boehner said.
Biden said Thursday that he was extremely disappointed with Boehner’s comments.
“This is a step backward in the history of the country,” Biden said.
The national debate over immigration has sharply divided Georgians. Conservative activists from this state have marched in Washington and demonstrated in Atlanta against granting legal status to illegal immigrants. They say immigrants living illegally in Georgia are displacing U.S. workers and burdening the state’s public schools.
“They should be deported,” said Steve Ramey, a co-chairman of the Gwinnett Tea Party. Asked what would happen if the nation were to give illegal immigrants a route to citizenship, Ramey said, “we would become a Third World nation overnight.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of immigrant rights activists have marched through downtown Atlanta this year in support of overhauling the nation’s immigration laws. Large businesses that have big operations in Georgia and that rely on temporary foreign workers — including Caterpillar and Home Depot — have spoken in favor of improving the immigration system. Evangelical leaders from this state have quoted Scripture in support of immigrants while calling on Congress to take action.
Bernice King, the CEO of the King Center and the youngest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke before the citizenship ceremony Thursday.
“No human being is illegal or alien because we are all God’s children,” she said. “Therefore, our country must have humane immigration reform that ensures all people who come to this nation are treated with respect and dignity and also have access to a path to citizenship.”
Estefanie Gomez of Atlanta was among those who became U.S. citizens Thursday. The Venezuela native said providing a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living illegally in the U.S. would be the right thing to do.
“I think it is a matter of being fair, but also being — I think it is just more justice,” she said. “We always say ‘We are all God’s children. God loves America.’ But I don’t think we always practice that because of the way that we treat a lot of those immigrants is not human.”
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