From NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Speer.President Obama was in San Francisco today, lobbying on behalf of a bottled up immigration bill.The president saying he would be willing to go along with House Republicanswho want to break the measures into piecesif that's what it takes to get it through.Invoking the spirit of Thanksgiving,the president saying immigration system is in need of repair."It is long past time to reform an immigration system that right now doesn't serve America as well as it should.We could be doing so much more to unleash our potential, if we just fix this aspect of our system."Speaking in the city with a large Asian population in the Chinatown neighbourhood,Obama said a quarter of the foreign-born population in the U.S. in 2011 came from Asian countries.More people were prosecuted for immigration violations in the last year than ever before.NPR's Ted Robbins says most of the charges were illegal entry or illegal reentry into the U.S..More than 97,000 defendants were charged with immigration crimes during the last federal fiscal year.That's about 6% more than the year before,and 22% more than five years ago.The rise has not explained,but it correlates with the federal government's operation streamlinethat's the program in federal courts in which illegal crossers caught by the border patrol appear before magistrates and are sentenced in one day.The 97,000 number comes from the Justice Department through a Freedom of Information Actrequest by the track project of Syracuse University.
