Obama Seeks to Redefine Debate on Immigration in Economic Terms

President Barack Obama sought to recast the debate over revamping the country’s immigration laws in economic terms, arguing that that innovation from immigrants was vital to job growth and that an underground economy fueled by illegal immigration was undermining the U.S. middle class.

Making his first trip to the southern U.S. border as president, Obama told an audience in El Paso, Texas, that his administration has answered critics who demanded stricter border enforcement. Now, he said, it’s time to provide a legal path to residency for some of the 11 million people in the country illegally and revise an “outdated” system for legal immigration.