"We are Americans," he said. "Standing up for each other is what the values enshrined in the documents in this room compels us to do
True, but we are also human so shouldn't we take in all the people we can to help them because it's the right thing to do?
If people did watch, though, they saw a president urging the U.S. public to look at immigration through the lens of history. "In the Mexican immigrant today, we see the Catholic immigrant of a century ago," he said. "In the Syrian seeking refuge today, we should see the Jewish refugee of World War II."
President Obama looked at this through the eyes of history. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to repeat history, so we should look at immigration objectively, and we might be able to think of better reform ideas.
He also calls for suspending the issuance of any new green cards, writing, "there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers."
Maybe he's attempting to shut it down because he cares for our people, and not because he doesn't like immigrants.
that immigration laws must be fully enforced and that "any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans."
Maybe the reason border debacles happen are because Americans are much too aggressive, so those people crossing the border feel so threatened they end up defending themselves which ends up in American deaths.
deep disappointment
Alliteration
If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.
Comparison of times
Small in number, they were big in commitment.
Comparison
How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
Metaphor/Figurative Language
dripped with words of interposition and nullification
Metaphor/Figurative Language
I have heard
Parallel Structure
I have watched
Parallel Structure
I have watched
Parallel structrue
I have longed
Parallel structure
But again I have been disappointed.
Reiterates the message of disappointment