Obama says immigration legislation must have path to citizenship

President Obama said an immigration bill without a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants “does not make sense.” He spoke about the legislation during an interview in Denver on Tuesday with a television station owned by Telemundo. He said, “It does not make sense to me, if we’re gonna make this once-in-a-generation effort to finally fix the system, to leave the status of 11 million people or so unresolved.”

The president explained that immigration reform without a path to citizenship would be un-American. He said, “It’s not who we are as Americans. That’s never been our tradition.” He explained, “If you’ve eaten your dessert before you’ve eaten your meal, at least with my children, sometimes they don’t end up eating their vegetables. We need to, I think, do this as a complete package.”