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WASHINGTON (AP) – Overhauling U.S. immigration laws has become the first of President Barack Obama’s major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment.
Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.
The president noted that lawmakers may lack the “appetite” to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue, climate change, already is on their plate.
“I don’t want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn’t solve the problem,” Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.
Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. Several hard realities – a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will – led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."