President Barack Obama talks with members of the press after meeting with members of Congress to discuss immigration, Thursday in Washington.
(Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP)Photos (1 of 1)
Obama urges Congress not to put off immigration reform
But lawmakers are in no rush to tackle a controversial issue that has broad economic and social implications.
By By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer/ June 25, 2009 edition
Washington
President Obama Thursday called for some “heavy lifting” on immigration reform on Capitol Hill, but there’s no move there to rush into it.
With energy, healthcare, and financial regulation on a fast track, there’s little running room for an issue that has baffled lawmakers for the past three years. But for president and a critical mass of interest groups heavily invested in comprehensive reform, even a symbolic stake in the ground is a start.
“The consensus is that despite our inability to get this passed over the last several years, the American people still want to see a solution,” Mr. Obama said after a bipartisan meeting with House and Senate members.
“We’ve got a responsible set of leaders sitting around the table who want to actively get something done and not put it off until a year, two years, three years, five years from now, but to start working on this thing now,” he said.
Pressed on the issue at a briefing today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that “the plan has always been for the Senate to go first.”
The Senate passed immigration reform in 2006, but efforts bogged down in 2007 and 2008. House Democrats, who all face voters every two years, want to be assured that a plan can pass the Senate, before taking what is for many a tough vote.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said at a Monitor Breakfast Thursday that one of the reasons the president called a meeting with lawmakers is to keep a focus on the issue because there isn’t yet a majority to pass comprehensive legislation.
“The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and immigration groups have all asked for a meeting because the votes aren’t there,” he said. “If the votes were there, you wouldn’t need to have the meeting, you’d go to a roll call.”
“If it doesn’t happen in the next two months, I don’t think that that means that it doesn’t happen between now and 2010,” he added.
But the administration isn’t waiting on Congress to take steps to ease barriers to legal immigration.
For the foreign nationals lined up for news about their citizenship applications, the process is about to get easier. Within the next 90 days, those updates will be coming by e-mail, text message, or online, the president announced at today’s immigration summit.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also cleared up much of the backlog of immigration background checks, and the famously opaque US Citizenship and Immigration Services Office will soon be “much more efficient, much more transparent, much more user-friendly than it has been in the past,” Obama added.
“My administration is fully behind an effort to achieve comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.
That reform agenda, as outlined in today’s meeting, includes: tightening borders, cracking down on employers who use illegal workers in order to drive down wages, and a path to legal status for the “undocumented workers who are here.”
Conspicuous for its absence is emphasis on an expanded guest-worker program – a top priority for some US businesses and a fixture in the last immigration-reform drive.
“The White House meeting today is intended as political theater – a bone being thrown to the pro-amnesty groups to demonstrate the White House’s commitment to amnesty, even though they don’t have the votes to pass it,” says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes stricter controls on immigration.
Comments
2. PO Citizen | 06.25.09
“the American people still want to see a solution,” Mr. Obama said”
Yes, we do. It’s proving they can secure our nation’s borders BEFORE attempting any other legislation. Which they have not done.
D.C., are YOU listening?
3. Delmar Jackson | 06.25.09
Billions of the stimulus dollars will go to poilitically connected contractors that will hire the cheapest labor- illegals, and Obama refuses to include E Verify in the Stimulus bill to prevent this from happening.
He also fails to reduce the 100,000 a month coming to America on mostly fraudulent worker visa programs or the 100,000 plus a month coming legally each month through chain migration.
Nearly all the usa population growth in the last 40 years has come from immigration, we need to ask ourselves why are we doing this and who benefits from this tidal wave of immigration. The American people don’t want another amnesty, they want leadership!
4. Abby | 06.25.09
I am really excited to see the US step up and take control of immigration. I really hope that they get the votes to pass amnesty. There are a lot of hard working people in this country that are just trying to take care of their families.
5. Wanda G. Berger | 06.25.09
“President Obama Thursday called for some “heavy lifting” on immigration reform…”
The administration is unwilling to enforce existing laws, implement E-Verify, put an end to the Visa lottery, stop chain immigration, oppose importing endless foreign workers or enact any of the real reforms called for by the Jordan Commission. Obama’s call for “heavy lifting” rings hollow.
All we are promised is that amnesty is the snake oil the nation needs to “fix” the problem Congress has created.
No deal.
8. Dini | 06.26.09
STOP THE DEPORTATION OF LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENTS. Sad that after one lives in US as a permanent resident is deported for past mistake-. Leaving US born children fatherless,,,wives husbandless,,,the hardships and the sorrows experienced by families is horrifying,,, These are/were legal residents, and no where was there a law that said if you brake any laws in US we will deport you regardless of how long you have lived here or if you have children or not. Sad that US has stooped this low,,,with total disregard to family life. A nazi like tacktic by ICE and immigration authorities,,,wake up congress/US, your children are crying!
9. Dianne Gregory | 06.26.09
IMPLEMENT E-VERIFY! ENFORCE THE LAW…ENFORCE THE USE OF E-VERIFY!
THIS WOULD REDUCE IDENTITY FRAUD, FRAUDULENT ABUSE OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND ABUSE OF ILLEGAL WORKERS.
STRENGTHEN THE BORDERS. BLOCK THE ENTRY OF ILLEGALS. CHECK THE INCOMING TRUCKS FROM MEXICO MANY OF WHICH ARE NOT UP TO U.S.A. SAFETY STANDARDS AND MANY CARRY QUESTIONABLE CARGO.
10. Sam | 06.26.09
I am one of the thousands of people who are just stuck in the clogs of immigration. Speaking of myself, I am an experienced engineer with 2 masters degrees, waiting for my permanent residency for last 5 years with no hopes in sight for next xx years. i have followed every known requirement of every immigration law and willing to comply with any new requirements as well. e-verify, z-verify… bring it on. yes, i was born in a third world country in a not so wealthy family. i have worked extremely hard, educated myself and want to make it good for my family. i love this country for the wealth of opportunities it has provided to millions like me. but right now, things in immigration are simply out of control and broke. why should it take 10+ years for a perfectly legal, law abiding, well qualified person to get through? mr. obama, please do something that would reduce this waiting period, if you really want to solve the problem. being able to get updates in email or text whatever is hardly going to solve anything. FYI - we already do get updates on the status of our immigration applications in email, just that the status has been “pending” for last 4 years.
11. Ima Hansen | 06.26.09
Think about this: Our rule of law has become a JOKE! Special interest groups have pressured the politicians into doing NOTHING about illegal immigration. We have all the laws we need to resolve the immigration fiasco. The politicians will NOT allow the laws to be ENFORCED. WE are no longer a nation of laws, as the politicians like to proclaim, but instead we have become a nation of men. It is most unfortunate for our once GREAT nation to have succumbed to special interest groups at the expense of the common citizen. Who is looking out for us? It is time for the people to take back this great country and restore it to what it was intended to be by our founding fathers (a nation of laws)!
12. Believe in Equality of All Human Beings | 06.26.09
Weren’t your forefathers Illegal invaders. This nation is a nation of immigrants, people of blood and flesh like all of us. It is in that diversity that relies the core value of our greatness. They come here seeking the promise of this great land of ours, merely Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
13. Mike | 06.26.09
Me and My Wife came to this country as highly educated work permit holders. I donot work on low wages than my fellow citizen workers, I pay approx 45000 in taxes every year, I don’t even have a single traffic ticket leave apart a criminal behavioral, I decided to follow law and not break it by crossing border illegally..
WHAT DO I GET?
I am thrown after illegal immigrants when it comes to Green Card. I have to be dependent on my employer to sponsor my Green card, while illegal do it on own. Illegal will get a work permit which allow him to work with any employer, while I have to stick to one employer for years and years until I get Green card. Illegal living in US for 5 years will get green card or Z visa under one proposal and legal like me will not. THIS IS WHAT OBAMA, HARRY REID, PELOSI WILL BE GIVING ME. PUNISHMENT FOR FOLLOWING THE LAW. ILLEGALS BREAKING LAW PREFFERED, LEGALS get lost.
14. Jan | 06.26.09
But that’s just it. We really do want cheap labor, legal or illegal. When the govt. cracked down in the last couple of years, restaurants started closing, and construction slowed.
In my community, many of the lower level jobs go begging, and no one wants to fill them. We want cheap meals, cheaper houses, cheaper clothing, etc. People don’t come over the borders and sit on their hands. They are known as good workers and employers feel lucky to get them.
Just like many other issues, people say one thing, but the reality is different.
15. marly | 06.26.09
US is so blessed for having the immigrants, otherwise it would be a population decrease here that Japan, Germany, Sweden and other countries are facing. That’s the truth no anti immigration people want to know.
16. paul | 06.27.09
well this is the time to make a amnesty but not what these illegal people have been thinking..they should give amnesty who has been paying taxes for the past years even though they are illegal.i would request obama look in to these matters….they should prove that they have been paying like i am doing in this country entire my life…being an american i would like to welcome only the tax payer but not the people who are here illegal and eating up our society with welfare….
17. Julie | 06.28.09
People can be so cruel if it wasn’t for immaigrants many people and i mean americans, asians, and so on wouldn’t have food on there table. Appreciate what other people work while getting pay little money while your probably sitting in a office getting paid more. I don’t think you wanna see yourself workin in the fields, just think about it?
And yes they do pay taxes just like any other american would.
18. manish | 06.28.09
its time to solve immigration mr. Obama because everybody come here for better life
19. Isis | 06.29.09
well on my opinion i think that an amnesty should be approved, but not for everyone!
i know, some immigrants screw up for all… and i think is not fair for peolple to judge immigrants just because this bad ones…
i think the amnesty should focus the more on alien students and really hard workers who has families… that are nice and decent families… mostly for kids, and as i said already students because they are not here because they asked their families too…
they are brought here against their own will leaving their lives, friends and eveything behind….
that’s why i think the amnesty is a good thing but not for all…
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1. James King | 06.25.09
The year 2010 is a United States (U.S.) census year, and it brings with it the key question, “Are there 12 million undocumented aliens in the U.S.?” A U.S. census that does not account for undocumented aliens is largely a waste of time and money. As such, a comprehensive immigration bill passed before 2010 will go a long way in bringing undocumented aliens out of the shadows for the national census in 2010.
James King