Comprehensive Immigration Reform Stalling – Advocates in Neutral
It looks as though President Obama is holding off on comprehensive immigration reform. Even if it would be more corect to append a “for now” to that sentence, the president is to be applauded for doing so.
What caught my eye was this.
“I’m just surprised at how muted the reaction has been to Obama’s complete lack of action on immigration,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who said immigrant rights groups are giving Mr. Obama “a lot more slack than they would have given a President McCain.”
Now why would that be? Is it because advocates of illegal immigration believe that the president will deliver comprehensive immigration reform, a.k.a. amnesty, in due course and they just have to be patient? Or is it just easier to hear “bad news” from someone whom you view as being on your team; i.e., because President Obama is a Democrat?
One example that comes to mind is President Bill Clinton signing welfare reform to minimal objection on any front. (Republican examples welcome; I’m sure they exist but am drawing a blank at the moment.)
There could be a number of explanations:
(1)the current unemployment situation makes amnesty a potentially unpopular move right now.
(2)Immigration reform is the most complicated legislation imaginable.Obama has a lot of plates spinning right now between the economy and world affairs.
(3)It’s not close to an election when Obama and his allies can reap votes in certain communities that have been supporting immigration very strongly.
(4)The last amnesty was so screwed up,they may not want a repeat until they think they have a plan fully worked out.
Maybe he’s just waiting for an opportune moment,like I strongly suspect he is doing with regard to gun control.
Obama is a hard left ideologue and I don’t think he has any intention of abandoning his plans to remake the USA along much more left wing lines.
Immigration reform is strange-it’s not actually as much of a left-right issue as some others.
Just because the people protesting Tancredo were fringe Marxist fools,doesn’t mean that everyone for amnesty is a liberal,nor that all opposing it are conservative.
A lot of it has to do with how people think they will be affected by such move.