Obama Pressed On Immigration. Conservatives Silent

Obama placed on defensive in appearance before Latino groups. "Whenever President Obama has sought to turn up pressure on Republicans on issues important to Latinos, he has found reliable partners in Spanish-language TV networks Univision and Telemundo. On Thursday, Obama came calling again -- but this time, his partners became adversaries. Obama was appearing at a town-hall-style event at the Newseum to encourage the Latino community to sign up for health-insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act. But the hosts, Jose Diaz-Balart of Telemundo and Enrique Acevedo of Univision, turned their sights on another issue: immigration." David Nakamura in The Washington Post

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Obama calls self 'champion-in-chief' on reform, but says nothing he can do about deportations. "President Barack Obama called himself the 'champion-in-chief' of comprehensive immigration reform Thursday but said once again that there's nothing he can do stem the flow of deportations....Obama passed the buck on deportations to Congress, which he said is responsible for funding government positions responsible for deportations." Reid J. Epstein in Politico.

Meanwhile, conservatives were quieter on immigration this year at CPAC. "The main speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference almost entirely ignored immigration. Even Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who co-authored the Senate immigration bill, dodged the issue. The one major exception was Donald Trump, who denounced Rubio for wanting to 'let everyone in' and repeated the oldest of all anti-immigration slogans. 'They're taking your jobs!' Trump declared. It was a far cry from last year's CPAC, where immigration was arguably the number one issue among speakers and attendees." Benjy Sarlin at MSNBC.com.