Guardian

“IT takes a lot of courage to do what Tolu did,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday at the White House as he highlighted the story of a Nigerian immigrant who will benefit if the United States (U.S.) Congress passes a comprehensive reform law that would be voted on this week at the Senate.

Obama spoke at a White House event to drum up support for the bill, which is being sponsored by eight U.S. Senators – four each from the Democratic and Republican parties.

In order to demonstrate the need for such a bill, Obama invited a Nigerian lady Tolu Olubunmi, 31, and several other guests to the White House Tuesday morning.

Obama asked the audience at the White House event to applaud Tolu, who was brought to the U.S. by her parents when she was 14, and has never been able to document her stay in America since then.

The U.S. President said Tolu’s story is equally shared by several young people who came to America as a child, not of their own deliberate choice, but who have stayed long, done well in school, never broken the law, but yet are still immigrants.

Obama is supporting the immigration reform that will open a door to a legal status to people like Tolu Olubunmi and over 11 million other illegal immigrants in America.

“This week, the Senate will consider a common-sense, bipartisan bill that is the best chance we’ve had in years to fix our broken immigration system,” Obama was also quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) as saying at the event.

The president also sought to disarm conservative Republicans – even some who support immigration reform – who argue that the bill should not be passed without tough new border security measures.

“I know there’s a lot of talk right now about border security; so let me repeat: Today illegal crossings are near their lowest level in decades.

“If passed, the Senate bill, as currently written and as hitting the floor, would put in place the toughest border enforcement plan that America has ever seen. So nobody’s taking border enforcement lightly.”

“There’s no reason Congress can’t get this done by the end of the summer,” Obama said, but cast doubt on the motives of those wanting to block the bill.

“If you’re not serious about it, if you think that a broken system is the best America can do, then I guess it makes sense to try to block it,” he said.

“But if you’re actually serious and sincere about fixing a broken system, this is the vehicle to do it, and now is the time to get it done,” he added.

“There is no good reason to play procedural games or engage in obstruction just to block the best chance we’ve had in years to address this problem in a way that’s fair to middle-class families, to business owners, to legal immigrants.”

At the event, Obama praised the bipartisan progress that continues to be made in the Senate, which will have its first vote on the bill this week.

Others who joined the U.S. President at the event, beside Tolu, who stood beside Obama on the front with other guests included law enforcement representatives, business and labour leaders, faith leaders, and Republican and Democratic elected officials who are all also calling on the Senate to pass a bill that meets these important principles.

Tolu Olubunmi who had also been outspoken in the past few years on the need for immigration reform in the U.S., was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but was brought here by her father because of what she described as the “increasing erratic political climate, “ in Nigeria before the restoration of civil rule in 1999.

According to her, she graduated high school in Virginia at the top of her class and won a scholarship to study Chemical Engineering. But since she graduated in 2002, she has not been able to work as a chemical engineer because of her undocumented status.

She even narrated what seems to be the condition of several other undocumented immigrants in the U.S. when she disclosed that she could not return to Nigeria for her father’s burial in 2006 because going will mean she could not return to the U.S., where she has been living since age 14.

Tolu is now working as a volunteer and a speaker on immigration reform, and has been connected with top U.S. senators like Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, from the State of Illinois, who has highlighted Tolu’s case on the floor of the Senate and now, at the White House where she stood with President Obama to call on the U.S lawmakers to pass the immigration reform.

US-based Nigerian groups like the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, CANAN, and the Nigerians in Diaspora Organization have both joined the debate here in the U.S. calling for comprehensive immigration reform.