President Barack Obama continued to lash out at Congressional Republicans on Thursday, calling them hypocritical for blaming him for the border crisis while refusing to take up immigration reform.
Obama said House Republicans “don’t have enough energy or organization or I don’t know what” to vote on the bipartisan immigration reform bill the Senate passed in 2013. He said the bill would have strengthened the border where more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors have been caught attempting to illegally enter the country.
“And then they are mad at me for trying to do some things to make the immigration system work better,” Obama said.
Obama rallied a crowd in Austin, Texas during a trip in which he has been criticized for holding fundraisers but not visiting the U.S.-Mexico border where children, mostly from Central America, have crossed believing they can remain in the country.
The president met with local leaders in Dallas on Wednesday to discuss the border situation, after which he urged Congress to approve a White House request for $3.7 billion to help deal with the crisis.
Earlier on Thursday House Speaker John Boehner called it “a problem of the president’s own making.”
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-- Andrew Rafferty
