AP, Las Vegas :Hillary Rodham Clinton is giving immigration a prominent role in her 2016 presidential campaign, reassuring skeptics and seeking to cast Republican presidential candidates as obstacles to overhauling the nation’s immigration system.Clinton said Tuesday that any immigration legislation must include a path to “full and equal citizenship” and defended President Barack Obama’s use of executive actions to shield millions of immigrants from deportation as a necessary move in the face of congressional inaction.”I will fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for you and for families across our country,” Clinton said at a Las Vegas high school, joined in the library by students who have been protected by Obama’s executive actions. “I will fight to stop partisan attacks on the executive actions that would put Dreamers … at risk of deportation.”She added, “if Congress refuses to act, as president I will do everything possible under the law to go even further.”Taking on the GOP field, Clinton said “not a single Republican candidate” has supported a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally. “When they talk about legal status, that is code for second-class status,” she said.Clinton’s remarks came during her first campaign stop in Nevada – she was spending Wednesday and the remainder of the week raising money in California – and underscored Democrats’ efforts to box-in Republican presidential candidates who have opposed a comprehensive bill including a pathway to citizenship. Congressional Republicans have said the changes must be made incrementally, beginning with stronger border security.The issue resonates with many Hispanic Americans, who backed President Barack Obama by wide margins over Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and helped the president’s re-election campaign capture several hard-fought swing states, including Florida, Colorado and Nevada.Republicans have sought to repair relations with Latino voters, led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who have courted Hispanics and talked about ways to overhaul the immigration system while opposing Obama’s executive actions last year to shield millions of immigrants from deportation.
