Sen. John McCain is accusing President Barack Obama of pandering to Hispanic voters to ensure his re-election by failing to enforce immigration laws in Arizona and refusing to offer comprehensive legislation to help control illegal immigration.
Speaking Monday night on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” the Arizona Republican suggested Obama also tried to sabotage a bipartisan immigration reform measure in 2007 — passed when the president was a U.S. senator — by offering an amendment that would have effectively killed the bill.
At the time, Obama had joined as a cosponsor of the reform effort headed by McCain and the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
“He was the only one that I can recall that joined our group and then turned around and proposed an amendment that if it had passed, it would have destroyed, obviously, the bill,” McCain said.
Expressing frustration over the Supreme Court ruling Monday that struck down most of Arizona’s tough immigration enforcement law, McCain said the decision would likely give a green light to the Obama administration to do even “less of its job” enforcing immigration this election year.
“My thought is that in order for the president of the United States to be reelected, he has to have very solid support amongst the Hispanic community,” McCain said.
“I cannot believe that political calculations are not a major part of this, he added. “Otherwise, he would have proposed comprehensive immigration reform back in 2009 when he was first president of the United States.”
McCain stressed again that the Arizona law was passed “because the federal government had not done its job.”
“And now, the federal government, irony of ironies, is going to do less of its job,” he added.
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