Obama to McConnell, GOP Blocking Exec. Amnesty: Sue, Vote; I Will Veto that Vote

"They know no other country. And this approach of executive actions has been used by previous Republican and democratic presidents throughout modern times. Now, what we did most recently was to expand that so more people would be eligible for DACA and if you're a parent of a legal resident, if you've been here for a while, if you're part of our community, you should be able to come forward, get registered, go through a background check, and if you generally have been contributing to our community, you should be able to stay here legally and not be in fear of deportation. It did not provide citizenship because only Congress could do that, but it was going to help. And I think we saw the reaction in the community, and the truth is, across the country people recognized this was the right thing and the smart thing to do. Now, unfortunately, a number of Republican governors chose to sue. They found a district court judge who has enjoined, meaning stopped us going forward with this program. But that's just the first part of the process. This is just one federal judge. We have appealed it very aggressively. We're going to be as aggressive as we can, because not only do we know the law is on our side, but history is on our side. In the meantime what we said to the Republicans, is that instead of trying to hold hostage funding for the department of homeland security, which is so important for our national security, fund that, and let's get on with actually passing comprehensive immigration reform. In the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the speaker of the house, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I'm doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote. Because I'm absolutely confident that what we're doing is the right thing to do. In the meantime, we're going to continue to pursue all legal avenues to make sure that we have a country in which we are respecting not only the law, because we're a nation of laws, but we're also respecting the fact that we're a nation of immigrants. I'm confident that ultimately people who have been living here for a long time, who have roots here, oftentimes have U.S. Citizen children here, or legal resident children here, that they reserve to have an opportunity and that's what we want to provide."