Obama tells lawmakers immigration a priority - The Boston Globe

Obama tells lawmakers immigration a priority - The Boston Globe


President Obama said yesterday that a bipartisan bill on the sensitive and volatile political issue will be difficult but must get underway this year. He spoke after he and members of his administration met with Congresspeople from both parties. The meeting was intended to begin mapping a plan to build support for an immigration measure that the president has said he would like to pass later this year or early next year, according to a senior White House official.

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President Obama schedules immigration reform meeting for June 8

The online political website Politico.com has revealed that President Obama has invited members of Congress to the White House on June 8 to discuss immigration reform. Officials are vague as to the purpose of the meeting, saying:

"The meeting will be an opportunity to launch a policy conversation that we hope will be able to start a debate that will take place in Congress later in the year....This isn’t a forum or a summit with outside groups, this is solely a meeting with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the issue."

There has been much speculation on whether President Obama plans to tackle comprehensive immigration reform this year or now (see earlier blog posts). Maybe we will get more indication of his intentions after the meeting next month.

Update on President Obama's immigration reform proposals

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that President Obama planned to push immigration reform as a priority in 2010. This report generated a lot of comment and controversy, not surprisingly, given that immigration reform is a controversial topic at any time, but especially in a recession. CNN.com now states that

Multiple Obama administration officials tell CNN that the White House is not pushing to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year.....There are roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. In addition to making a way for some of them to stay in the country legally, CNN has learned the Obama administration wants to remove incentives to enter the U.S. illegally, beef up border security and work with Mexico to cut down on illegal immigration.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has published a letter commending President Obama on his plans to reform immigration. AILA comments that

Moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform will ensure that all workers are here legally, will punish unscrupulous employers who undercut their honest competitors, and will restore integrity to the labor market. It will lift wages for workers, ensure all workers are paying taxes, restore fairness to our immigration system, and create a level playing field for law-abiding employers. We laud the administration for seeing past the political and emotional rhetoric to the truth that what our country needs to climb out of the crisis toward economic growth and stability.

Links to other online discussions:
Huffington Post
Wall Street Journal (Rahm Emanuel backing immigration reform)
New York Times
Fox News

Photo courtesy of Realjameso16

Obama citizenship fight ends

The US Supreme Court has rejected a claim that President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to serve as President because he had dual nationality at birth. The US Constitution requires presidents to be "natural-born citizens", i.e. born on US territory, not naturalized later. President-elect Obama was born in Hawaii, thereby qualifying him as a "natural-born citizen." Other lawsuits allege that his Hawaii birth certificate is fake. However independent bodies, including the nonpartisan Factcheck.org, believe it is genuine.