President Obama’s controversial move to open the nation’s door to millions of illegal immigrants is a fulfillment of former President Reagan’s dream of building a “shining city on a hill,” according to a progressive group’s TV ad.
The video from Americans United for Change shows Reagan talking about his move to relax immigration rules. In it the Gipper references his “shining city” that has doors open “to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”
It immediately flips to Obama who adds, “that’s the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come.”
The ad, previewed for Secrets, will begin running this weekend on Fox, CNN and MSNBC nationally, and heavily in on Washington stations. The group said it will run other similar ads if Republicans continue to take shots at Obama’s immigration action unveiled Thursday night.
It is the latest effort by pro-Obama and pro-immigration reform groups and pundits to defend Obama’s action by noting similar moves by Republicans, most notably Reagan.
“The president deserves praise for bringing stability to these hardworking families’ lives and taking a major first step towards fixing the broken immigration system. Incredibly, House Republicans are still shouting from the hilltops that the president is ‘poisoning the well’ by doing what they have been totally unwilling to do: act on immigration reform,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change.
Sniping at Republicans who believe Obama does not have the authority to act alone, he added with sarcasm, “Surely these same Republicans believe President Reagan was wrong and didn’t have the authority to defer the deportation of hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers when he did.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
