Obama Reels in Immigration Reform
One may wonder why, with a long and painful economic recovery still ahead, Obama is trying to push the issue of immigration reform.
On the surface, the President’s speech on immigration Thursday was simply a restatement of existing policy goals. Delving deeper, however, one may be able to discern a willingness to abandon blanket amnesty for an incremental approach – an approach that could lead to a victory for the left as early as this year.
In his speech today, President Obama once again outlined the basic quid pro quo that would set the basis for immigration reform: promises of enforcement in exchange for a process of gradual amnesty for illegal aliens.
Opponents of amnesty pointed out that the speech lacked any new initiatives. “There was no meat there; all he did was rehash the same old things. He didn’t announce any new legislation. he didn’t announce a unilateral grant of amnesty. He didn’t announce anything,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
However, the one morsel of new information that could be gleaned from the speech was a suggested willingness to consider an incremental approach to immigration reform.
The one specific piece of legislation that the President cited in his speech was the DREAM Act, a bill with bipartisan support that proposes to grant amnesty to illegal aliens who were brought to the United States as children and had subsequently earned a high school diploma.
“This might signal the willingness of the White House to [consider] a piecemeal approach to amnesty… instead of a comprehensive approach where all illegal aliens have to get legalized in one piece of legislation, [they would] target particular subgroups for amnesty,” said Krikorian.
The decision over whether to pursue incremental or comprehensive immigration reform goes to the heart of the immigration debate on the left.
Proponents of the DREAM Act suggest that comprehensive immigration reform is politically impossible. “We really believe that we should start with individual pieces, so that we can get a bigger, comprehensive package down the road. The political capital for comprehensive reform is not there… it may be more palatable for us to take smaller steps first,” said Juan, the Communications Director for the DREAM Activist Network (Juan declined to give his last name because of his current immigration status).
One may wonder why, with the prospect of a long and painful economic recovery ahead, the President is trying to push the issue of immigration reform. The answer may lie in a meeting that President Obama had with immigration reform advocates earlier this week.
“Pro-amnesty groups have become increasingly vocal about calling on the administration to do something. And this is what you get: for them, a speech is action,” said Krikorian.
And a speech may be all that proponents of comprehensive reform will get this year. Asked whether it was possible that a comprehensive immigration reform bill could be passed this year, Krikorian said: “No. Flat out no. Absolutely not.”
On the other hand, Krikorian said, one possibility is that a smaller piece of immigration reform legislation, like the DREAM Act, could be passed – possibly in a lame-duck session of Congress after the mid-term elections in November.
Proponents of the DREAM Act agree that their time is nearing. “We’re the closest we’ve ever been… there’s never been a better chance for us to pass the [DREAM Act] than this year,” said Juan, the communications director for the DREAM Network.
The activist groups pushing comprehensive immigration reform are quite strong in Washington, and will likely be disappointed in what they would see as an insufficiently broad measure. The President’s address today may well be the first in a series of moves to placate these constituencies, with an eye for passing the DREAM Act later this year.