In my view from the streets, it was about time that President Obama finally reconfirmed his commitment to immigration reform, an issue that was addressed during his presidential campaign.
Recently, during a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Southern California, Obama renewed his support for comprehensive immigration reform, including a possible path to citizenship for otherwise law-abiding people who entered the country illegally, along the lines of the bill that stalled in Congress in 2007. After the closed meeting, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, chairman of the Hispanic caucus's immigration task force, and advocacy groups said they were hopeful that Obama would address immigration reform this year. According to the White House account during a recent one-hour closed session, President Obama announced he will go to Mexico next month to meet President Calderon and discuss, among other issues, effective, comprehensive immigration reform.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently stated at a Capitol Hill conference on border issues sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "Raids that break up families in that way, just kick in the door in the middle of the night, taking [a] father, a parent away, that's just not the American way. It must stop."
While I am personally a great supporter of the need for immigration reform as a means to end the unfair treatment of Mexican immigrants and others who cross the border illegally, the spread of violence caused by the Mexican drug cartels make it more important than ever that this nation secures the border and at the same time learn the identities and backgrounds of the 20 million undocumented workers living throughout our country.
My question is whether President Obama has time to address immigration reform this year. So far, the President's political agenda includes massive economic stimulus, overhauling the energy grid, health care reform, restructuring education and outlawing secret ballot union elections.
The good news is that Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Janet Napolitano, recently announced the new Southwest Border Security Initiative (SBSI). The initiative is a broad, interagency effort that will refocus DHS resources to address the growing violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The SBSI seeks to curtail the violence by focusing on two elements: a redeployment of personnel to the border and increasing resources for screening border traffic. Critics say workplace and neighborhood sweeps are harsh and indiscriminate, and they accuse the government of racial profiling, violating due process rights and committing other humanitarian abuses.
The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base, who have stepped up pressure on Obama to stop them. At a recent rally in Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, head of the archdiocese of Obama's home city, called on the government "to end immigration raids and the separation of families" and support an overhaul of immigration law. "Reform would be a clear sign this administration is truly about change," Cardinal George said.
The word on the street is that although President Obama "got game on the basketball court," normalizing the status of 20 million undocumented workers will take a full court press. President Obama must assemble a team that will win the immigration political game in Congress while at the same time rallying support from both Democrats and Republicans.
Ronald Ellerbe is editor of Hub City News and columnist for LA Beez.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
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