Go Behind the Scenes With POTUS Before His Address to the Nation

Republicans have certainly had their say about President Obama’s decision to take executive action to fix our broken immigration system, but we don’t hear nearly equal coverage of the reasons for the action. So here’s a chance to get inside the President’s head and hear straight from him how he came to this decision and why he thought it was necessary.

The White House published a behind-the-scenes before the immigration address video with President Obama right before he delivered his address to the nation.

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Watch here:

President Obama’s driving considerations were empathy and compassion, and he made this clear when he said, “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.”

A person doesn’t have to be religious to value empathy and compassion. They are the cornerstones of civilization. As the President explained in his behind the scenes video, there was a balancing act he brought to his decision — between compassion and the importance of upholding and honoring our laws in a way that is fair, so as not to reward the breaking of laws or jumping to the front of the line.

Our immigration system isn’t working, but fixing it won’t be easy. It’s a complex problem that requires an ongoing balancing act. No solution will be perfect, and certainly President Obama would have preferred that Congress took action, but something needed to be done and the President did it.

It’s troubling to read the media using Republican spin to such a degree that the President’s actions are referred to as “amnesty” and there is an ongoing debate over the “imperial presidency”. Sorry, but that’s total crap.

Every president since Eisenhower has taken executive action on immigration. Reagan did it, both Bushes did it, it’s a non-starter. There is precedent for the President’s actions. If we had any kind of actual real media, they’d be focusing on what it is exactly that Congressional Republicans do for the paycheck We the People give them, because they certainly don’t legislate, even though that is their job description.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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