Obama Shelve's Immigration Reform?

Did we not hear the same thing about ObamaCare, and, less than a month later, it was shoved down our throats?  The only thing you can be sure of with Obama, Pelosi and Reid is that you can’t be sure of anything they tell you.  Remember, always watch the other hand!

The Progressive Socialists, formerly known as the Democratic Party, need the Hispanic vote to prevent a total bloodbath in November, and see immigration reform as the means to securing this vote, so don’t be surprised when this divisive issue surfaces again in the very near future.  Tom Tillison

 

By Suzanne Gamboa
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama‘s major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.

The president noted that lawmakers may lack the “appetite” to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue — climate change — is already on their plate.

“I don’t want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn’t solve the problem,” Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.

Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities — a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will — led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

With that move, the president calculated that an immigration bill would not prove as costly to his party two years from now, when he seeks re-election, than it would today, even though some immigration reformers warned that a delay could so discourage Democratic-leaning Latino voters that they would stay home from the polls in November.

Some Democrats thought pushing a bill through now might help their party. If it failed, they could blame Republican resistance, though in reality many Democrats didn’t want to deal with an immigration bill this year either.

Perhaps seeing the handwriting on the wall, top Senate Democrats released a legislative framework for immigration reforms anyway. The draft proposal, obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, called for, among other things, meeting border security benchmarks before anyone in the country illegally can become a legal permanent U.S. resident.

By Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered little hope that the issue was still alive on Capitol Hill.

“If there is going to be any movement in this regard, it will require presidential leadership, as well as an appetite, is that the word? … as well as a willingness to move forward in the Congress,” she said.

House Republican leader John Boehner was more blunt. “There is not a chance that immigration is going to move through the Congress,” he said Tuesday.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the Democrats’ leading advocate for immigration reform, has said he voted for health care reform on the understanding that Obama and congressional Democrats would move a major immigration bill.

Even though he would like to see Latinos turn out to vote for Democrats in 2010, Gutierrez said “many will probably decide to stay home.” However, he added, a strict, new immigration law in Arizona may change that dynamic. The law requires law enforcement officers to question anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.

“For Democrats it is critical they can deliver if they want to continue nurturing the support they want from this community,” said Clarissa Martinez De Castro, National Council of La Raza immigration and national campaigns director.

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.
Tom Tillison

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

PLEASE JOIN OUR NEW COMMENT SYSTEM! We love hearing from our readers and invite you to join us for feedback and great conversation. If you've commented with us before, we'll need you to re-input your email address for this. The public will not see it and we do not share it.

Latest Articles