President Barack Obama is calling for action to reform U.S. immigration policy

President Barack Obama is calling for action to reform U.S. immigration policy.   Mr. Obama says the U.S. immigration system is “broken and dangerous,” and the country’s borders are too vast for the problem to be solved only by building more fences.”In sum, the system is broken, and everybody knows it,” he said.  “Unfortunately, reform has been held hostage to political posturing and special-interest wrangling, and to the pervasive sentiment in Washington that tackling such a thorny and emotional issue is inherently bad politics,” Mr. Obama added.Speaking at American University’s School of International Service, the president made his first major appeal for a comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigration policies.

He did not announce any new initiatives on the issue, but called overhauling the U.S. immigration system “a moral imperative.”White House officials say the president’s decision to speak about the issue was influenced by several factors, including the state of Arizona’s recent passage of a tough law against illegal immigrants.Mr. Obama said inaction at the federal level has led to what he considers a bad law.”Into this breach, states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.  Given the levels of frustration across the country, this is understandable.  But it is also ill-conceived,” he said.The new law has been met with protests around the country, although polls show that a majority of Americans questioned support it.The president said a comprehensive solution is needed for America’s immigration problem.  He sought to reassure those who want to get tough on illegal migrants that he does not support giving amnesty to people who are in the United States against the law.”Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship,” he said.  “And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.”

Mr. Obama also reassured pro-immigrant groups he has no intention of trying to round up and deport those who are in the country illegally.”They know it is not possible.  Such an effort would be logistically impossible and wildly expensive.  Moreover, it would tear at the very fabric of this nation,” said the president.

Mr. Obama urged U.S. lawmakers to have the political courage to address an important issue.Despite the president’s appeal, members of Congress, many of whom are seeking re-election in November, are not likely to take up the controversial issue of immigration reform this year.(VOA)

Obama's Justice Department will soon file a lawsuit against the controversial Arizona law

President Obama added a late meeting this afternoon, a closed-to-the-press session featuring only what the White House described as “grassroots leaders” to discuss “comprehensive immigration reform.”The meeting takes place amid anticipation that Obama’s Justice Department will soon file a lawsuit against the controversial Arizona law that gives law enforcement officers authority to ask residents about their citizenship.

Obama said the law opens the door to potential harassment and that a better solution is comprehensive reform that combines tighter border security with a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are already in the U.S.

Critics such as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the focus should be on border enforcement. Brewer, who met with Obama this month at the White House, said her state’s law is a logical response to the federal government’s failure to protect the border.And in related Arizona immigration news, the Supreme Court today agreed to review a 2007 state law that punishes employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.(AP)

Dallas will join immigration law protests in Arizona

More than two dozen North Texas residents are headed for Arizona to join protests against that state’s new immigration law.The trip is organized by the Megamarch Committee, the same group that held a march through downtown Dallas on May 1 to promote an immigration reform bill that would legalize millions of undocumented workers and their families.Committee members said they want to show support and lend expertise to Latino activists in Arizona.

The Arizona law gives police broad powers to check the paperwork of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling, while advocates say it’s necessary because the federal government has failed to stop illegal immigration.”We have a responsibility to continue our struggle for justice for everybody, so what threatens our brown brothers and sisters is also a concern for us,” said the Rev. Peter Johnson, who was boarding a charter bus in Oak Cliff early Thursday.

The North Texas bus riders, including both immigrants and American-born citizens, were to hook up with immigration-rights activists in El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M. Organizers say they will drive in a caravan to Nogales, Ariz., where a demonstration is scheduled Friday on the international bridge leading into Nogales, Mexico.

The group, which says all of its demonstrations will be peaceful, returns Sunday.”I’m first-generation but the rest of my family is from Mexico, so I want to help them,” said Raul Garcia, a Dallas painting contractor who carried a poster of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a revered religious symbol for Mexican Catholics, in a stylized pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.

“We’re going over there to open their eyes, to let them know that we’re hard-working people just like them and that we deserve to be treated with dignity. The fact is that (immigrants) contribute a lot to our community.”

Daniela Sánchez, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of North Texas, said she hopes the national attention being drawn to Arizona will actually foster debate on a national immigration reform bill that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.”I do believe we need some kind of immigration reform, but what (Arizona) has done is really unfair,” said the Plano resident. “We’re living in a society that is more diverse and multicultural than ever before and it’s time everyone in government acknowledges that.”

Feds may sue over Arizona immigration law

Washington Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday that the Justice Department was considering a federal lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law. “We are considering all of our options. One possibility is filing a lawsuit,” Holder told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Possible grounds for the lawsuit would be whether the Arizona law could lead to civil rights violations, he said. The recently enacted Arizona law initially allowed police to ask anyone for proof of legal U.S. residency, based solely on a police officer’s suspicion that the person might be in the country illegally.

Arizona lawmakers soon amended the law so that officers could check a person’s status only if the person had been stopped or arrested for another reason. Critics say the law will lead to racial profiling, while supporters say it involves no racial profiling and is needed to crack down on increasing crime involving illegal immigrants. In Arizona , the city councils of Tucson and Flagstaff have decided to challenge the new immigration law in court. Holder told ABC’s “This Week” program that one concern about the Arizona law is that “you’ll end up in a situation where people are racially profiled, and that could lead to a wedge drawn between certain communities and law enforcement, which leads to the problem of people in those communities not willing to interact with people in law enforcement, not willing to share information, not willing to be witnesses where law enforcement needs them.”

“I think we could potentially get on a slippery slope where people will be picked on because of how they look as opposed to what they have done, and that is, I think, something that we have to try to avoid at all costs,” Holder added. Holder said comprehensive federal immigration reform is the best approach for the problem of illegal immigrants crossing U.S. borders. His stance echoed the approach favored by President Obama, who last week criticized the Arizona law and said he wants Congress to work on the issue this year.

Comprehensive immigration reform would include continuing government efforts to secure borders from illegal immigrants, as well as steps to crack down on businesses that employ them, Obama said at a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House. In addition, he said, those living illegally in the United States would have to pay a penalty and any taxes they owe, learn English and “make themselves right with the law” before starting the process of gaining U.S. citizenship.(CNN)

Arizona law "misguided,"

Rumors circulate of an immigration raid at Cinco de Mayo festivities. Markets normally bustling with customers preparing for the celebration are quiet. Family picnics are scaled back.Many Hispanics in Arizona are increasingly anxious about being targeted under the state’s tough anti-illegal immigration law. Some are afraid to leave their homes, even on the day when the nation celebrates Hispanic heritage.

“They don’t want to go to the park or clubs to celebrate because they’re scared,” said George Cortez, a 24-year-old U.S. citizen from Mesa, as he took a break from sweeping hair clippings at Eagle’s barbershop in the Phoenix suburb.The law’s passage unleashed a torrent of criticism against the state. Some fear the law, which requires police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally, could lead to racial profiling.

The National Council of La Raza, United Food and Commercial Workers and others scheduled a news conference in Washington today to urge a boycott of Arizona.Immigrant rights activists say the law is racist. Supporters deny those claims, noting that the law says race can’t be a sole reason for questioning people. They say the law is forcing the nation to confront a longstanding problem.

But some comments have unnerved Hispanics. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., for example, said he’d support deporting U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. He added “it takes more than walking across the border to be an American citizen.The debate has also played out in professional sports. The Phoenix Suns basketball team wore “Los Suns” jerseys in their playoff game Wednesday night, a show of support for the Hispanic community on Cinco de Mayo.

Obama on immigration

A White House Cinco de Mayo celebration erupted in applause when President Barack Obama, who has called the Arizona law “misguided,” acknowledged the Phoenix Suns’ action.Obama said Wednesday he wants to begin work this year on legislation overhauling the nation’s immigration system, but he offered no timetable to push for the actual passage of such legislation.”The way to fix our broken immigration system is through common-sense comprehensive immigration reform,” the president said. “I want to begin work this year, and I want Democrats and Republicans to work with me.”

Border security concern.In Washington, federal and state law enforcement officials told a Senate panel Wednesday that more federal funding is needed to help combat crimes linked to Mexico-based drug cartels.Donald Reay of the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition said more federal funding is needed to help states”The answer for border sheriffs is not to send more money to Mexico but augment the needs of our local law enforcement to contain that violence at the border,” Reay told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has filed a $300 million bill that would provide grants to local law enforcement agencies to hire personnel, pay overtime or buy equipment necessary to fight crime at the border. It also would create more federal judgeships for Southwest border states to step up prosecution of crimes.”We’ve asked for National Guard,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “We need manpower, we need help.”

Chief Jack Harris criticizes immigration law

The police chief of Arizona’s largest city said on Friday the state’s controversial new crackdown on illegal immigrants would likely create more problems than it solved for local law enforcement.U.S.The remarks by Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris came as U.S. Senate Democrats vowed to push ahead with their uphill bid to pass legislation this year overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, saying the furor in Arizona has given them a lift despite a lack of support from Republicans.

Arizona’s week-old law calls for state and local police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the United States illegally. It has outraged Latinos, civil rights activists and organized labor.With polls showing the crackdown has broad public support in Arizona and nationwide, Harris said at a news conference he understood Americans’ frustration over illegal immigration.

But he criticized the new law as unlikely to solve problems caused by any of the estimated 10.8 million people who are in the United States illegally.”I don’t really believe that this law is going to do what the vast majority of Americans and Arizonans want, and that is to fix the immigration problem,” he said. “This law … adds new problems for local law enforcement.”

Harris said asking officers to determine immigration status during an investigation would interfere with their primary job and “instead tells us to become immigration officers and enforce routine immigration laws that I don’t believe we have the authority to enforce.”The chief said his force already had 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in its violent crime unit and that the law provided no additional enforcement tools.

“We have the tools that we need to enforce the laws in this state, to reduce property crime and reduce violent crime, to go after criminals that are responsible for human smuggling,” and other border-related crimes,” Harris said.Republican backers say the law is needed to curb crime in the desert state, which is home to some 460,000 illegal immigrants and is a furiously trafficked corridor for drug and migrant smugglers from Mexico.Phoenix, the state capital and a clearing house for unauthorized immigrants and drugs headed to cities across the United States, has recently averaged one drug-related kidnapping nearly every day.

POLICE DIVIDED

Revealing stark divisions among police in the Phoenix valley over immigration, an Arizona sheriff known for cracking down hard on undocumented migrants continued a two-day immigration and crime sweep in the west of the city on Friday afternoon.Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “crime suppression” drives have led to allegations of racial profiling. Deputies stopped and arrested at least 63 people for minor offenses who could not prove they were in Arizona legally since the operation began on Thursday.In Washington, Democrats have been accused of playing election-year politics by proposing a comprehensive immigration overhaul that critics insist has little chance of success.

The Senate draft proposal, quickly endorsed by President Barack Obama, includes calls for bolstered border security, new sanctions on U.S. employers who hire illegal immigrants and high-tech identification cards that all U.S. workers would be required to carry.Senate Democrats appear to lack support from their Republican colleagues, however, and time is running out for legislative action before the November congressional election.

Republican Orrin Hatch, a member of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said Americans did not trust Washington to solve the illegal immigration problem.”Law-abiding immigrants, ranchers, farmers and families have no confidence that Washington can stop the drug traffickers, gangs and even those low-enough to traffic human beings from illegally coming into the United States,” Hatch said late on Thursday.”Instead of fixing our broken borders, Washington politicos are playing a cynical game of introducing so-called immigration reform that I fear will turn into nothing more than amnesty,” Hatch said.

The uproar unleashed by the Arizona law has galvanized Latinos and is expected to translate into higher turnout at annual May Day rallies in more than 70 cities nationwide on Saturday.Organizers say the crowds on the streets, from Los Angeles to New York, could be the biggest since 2006, when hundreds of thousands of marchers urged former President George W. Bush to overhaul federal immigration laws.(Reuters)

Az immigration law, New push for reform

WASHINGTON – As hopes for Republican support fade, Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday unveiled a push for comprehensive immigration reform aimed in part at stopping Arizona’s tough immigration-enforcement law from spreading to other states.”Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: The immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “We are offering this framework as an invitation to our Republican colleagues: Work with us to solve this problem that has plagued us for far too long.”But that invitation was met with skepticism by some key Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who this week abandoned efforts to work with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on a bipartisan bill. He was the only Republican working on the bill.

When it was clear that Graham was out, Democrats moved ahead with their own proposal, in part to respond to calls for action by Hispanic rights groups. Hispanic voters, who helped propel Barack Obama into the White House in 2008 after he pledged to make immigration reform a priority, make up an important part of Democrats’ political base.

But it is unclear whether the president will throw his weight behind the latest proposal, which would require that border security be significantly tightened before the government could offer a path to citizenship to the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.On Wednesday, Obama said Congress may lack the “appetite” to take on immigration during an election year in which Democrats are expected to lose seats in the House and Senate. But in a statement Thursday, Obama praised the proposal.

“The next critical step is to iron out the details of a bill,” he said. “We welcome that discussion, and my administration will play an active role in engaging partners on both sides of the aisle to work toward a bipartisan solution that is based on the fundamental concept of accountability that the American people expect and deserve.”

Rodolfo Espino, an assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University, said the mixed messages could simply be the result of Obama not wanting to raise expectations too high.Espino warned that Congress’ window of opportunity to act on the hot-button topic is shrinking fast.”If you push this too close to primary- and general-election dates, I just don’t see something very good coming out with respect to a wise immigration-reform policy,” he said. “As you start pushing closer and closer to that Tuesday in November, you’re going to have some Democrats, particularly some of your moderate, vulnerable Democrats, who are going to start waffling a bit more.”

In a joint statement, Graham and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said the immigration proposal is political gamesmanship. “It poisons the well for those of us who are working toward a more secure border and responsible, bipartisan reform of our immigration laws,” the statement said.

But Schumer said he is serious about reform and is continuing to talk with moderate Republican senators about signing onto the proposal, which would, among other things, bar states and municipalities from enacting their own Arizona-style rules and penalties related to immigration because those rules could “undermine federal policies.”The Arizona law, signed last week by Gov. Jan Brewer, makes it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally and requires police and other law-enforcement agents to check documents of people they reasonably suspect to be illegal.A new Gallup Poll indicates that 39 percent of Americans support the law, 30 percent oppose it and 31 percent have not heard of it or have no opinion. The telephone survey was taken Tuesday and Wednesday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.Attorney General Eric Holder is reviewing the law’s constitutionality.

Tamar Jacoby, president of the pro-reform ImmigrationWorks USA, has warned that a politically motivated, all-Democratic push for immigration reform could dramatically set back efforts to enact a new comprehensive policy. But she said it’s too soon to write off the latest Senate proposal as a political gambit and remains cautiously optimistic.”There’s still a chance that this isn’t just playing politics with it,” said Jacoby, whose organization backs reform from a center-right, pro-business perspective. “There are signs that they are still making some effort into making it a bipartisan push. Of course, it also still has a chance to go off the rails, but we so far are still walking that fine line.”

Democrats acknowledged they cannot pass the bill without help from at least a handful of Republican senators. House Democratic leaders have said they are waiting for the Senate to take action first.”The urgency of immigration reform cannot be overstated,” Schumer said.

President Barack Obama's major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment

WASHINGTON Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama’s major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.The president noted that lawmakers may lack the “appetite” to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue – climate change – is already on their plate.

“I don’t want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn’t solve the problem,” Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities – a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will – led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

With that move, the president calculated that an immigration bill would not prove as costly to his party two years from now, when he seeks re-election, than it would today, even though some immigration reformers warned that a delay could so discourage Democratic-leaning Latino voters that they would stay home from the polls in November.Some Democrats thought pushing a bill through now might help their party. If it failed, they could blame Republican resistance, though in reality many Democrats didn’t want to deal with an immigration bill this year either.

Perhaps seeing the handwriting on the wall, top Senate Democrats released a legislative framework for immigration reforms anyway. The draft proposal, obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, called for, among other things, meeting border security benchmarks before anyone in the country illegally can become a legal permanent U.S. resident.By Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered little hope that the issue was still alive on Capitol Hill.”If there is going to be any movement in this regard, it will require presidential leadership, as well as an appetite, is that the word? … as well as a willingness to move forward in the Congress,” she said.House Republican leader John Boehner was more blunt. “There is not a chance that immigration is going to move through the Congress,” he said Tuesday.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the Democrats’ leading advocate for immigration reform, has said he voted for health care reform on the understanding that Obama and congressional Democrats would move a major immigration bill.Even though he would like to see Latinos turn out to vote for Democrats in 2010, Gutierrez said “many will probably decide to stay home.” However, he added, a strict, new immigration law in Arizona may change that dynamic. The law requires law enforcement officers to question anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.”On one hand you are not going to vote because you don’t believe people you voted for are doing a good enough job,” Gutierrez said. “Then you say, ‘I got to vote, because the enemy is so mean and vindictive, I got to get out there.'”The Hispanic vote is growing, largely because of Latinos’ increasing population. The 9.7 million Latinos who cast ballots in 2008 made up about 7.4 percent of the electorate, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center study.

Hispanic voters helped flip the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico from Republican to Democratic in the 2008 presidential election.But even though Latinos’ numbers have been increasing, in some parts of the country their portions of voting populations are not large enough to affect election outcomes.

Democrats hold a 254-177 majority in the House, with four vacancies. But 48 are in districts where Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain did better than Obama in the 2008 elections.Matt Angle, a Democratic political strategist focused on Texas, said it would be worse for Democrats to propose a bill that has no hope of passing or getting Republican support. Doing so would allow Republicans to cherry-pick parts of the bill to use against Democratic candidates, he said.

The Senate also has a number of competitive races, some in states with significant numbers of Hispanic voters, such as in Nevada, the home state of Majority Leader Harry Reid. Latinos are about 12-15 percent of likely voters there.”For Democrats it is critical they can deliver if they want to continue nurturing the support they want from this community,” said Clarissa Martinez De Castro, National Council of La Raza immigration and national campaigns director.(AP)