Recession won't stop Obama from pushing immigration overhaul
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona, April 10, 2009
     President Obama has promised to begin working on immigration reform this year in an attempt to end a nearly two-year impasse in Congress.
     In an article in The New York Times on Thursday, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House, said the recession makes the political battle more difficult, but that won't deter the president from seeking reforms that include a path for legalization for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
     Administration officials told the newspaper that Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May and convene working groups, including lawmakers and a range of immigration organizations, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.
     The last round of serious immigration reform debate in Congress hit the skids on June 28, 2007, primarily because of legislative opposition to legalization.
     That proposal brought together three major concepts: legalization for most illegal immigrants; beefed-up border and interior enforcement; and a temporary-worker program to bring in 200,000 laborers annually. It also proposed a historic reordering of legal immigration, de-emphasizing the decades-old focus on family reunification in favor of bringing in more highly skilled foreigners.
     In the end, a bill that was fully embraced by no one and criticized by just about everybody imploded amid entrenched conservative opposition, distrust between both parties and the sense that too many compromises had to be made to keep the deal together.
     Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., who represents the Tucson area, said that while this may not be a good time to deal with such a controversial issue, "Congress needs to come to grips with this very difficult situation."
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a Arizona Democrat, agreed, noting that "President Obama is a good multitasker. This is a task he needs to take on. Border Patrol agents should be going after the drug cartels who are supplying marijuana to our children and not using limited resources to chase people who are sneaking into the United States to wash dishes."
     Details of Obama's plan are unknown, but the proposal is likely to address three basic themes, said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit that supports comprehensive reform.
     Those include better, smarter border and interior enforcement measures; a realistic plan to deal with the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants; and a revamping of the legal immigration system, he said.
     "Everybody but the crazy left and the crazy right believes those are the areas we need to focus on to fix this system," Johnson said.