President Obama makes case for immigration reform in Las Vegas

A short time ago, President Barack Obama concluded a 25-minute speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, making the case for immigration reform. The "news" of the speech is that he is embracing efforts in the Senate to craft bipartisan legislation that would reform our immigration laws and provide a path to citizenship for the millions of people living in our country without legal status.

"At this moment, it looks like there's a genuine desire to get this done soon," Obama said. But while he said that the efforts in the Senate were "encouraging," he also said that if those efforts failed to quickly result in legislative action he would send his own bill to Capitol Hill and begin pushing for that. Translation: If members of Congress want credit for working on immigration reform, they need to deliver results, and soon. Otherwise, the president will use the power of the bully pulpit to define the debate.

But while the news of the speech centered on the politics and process of immigration policy reform, the thing that made it powerful was its statement of values. "We define ourselves as a nation of immigrants'that's who we are in our bones," Obama said. "Immigration has always been something that inflames passions. That's not surprising. There are few things that are more important to us as as society than who gets to come here and call our country home. Who gets the privilege of becoming a citizen of the United States of America. That's a big deal."

Continue below the fold for more from President Obama's speech.