Thread: Immigration Reform Future In Doubt

Immigration Reform Future In Doubt

Updated: Saturday, 06 Nov 2010, 2:39 PM MDT
Published : Saturday, 06 Nov 2010, 2:39 PM MDT

(NewsCore) - As part of an 11th-hour appeal, President Barack Obama warned Hispanic voters last month that the fate of comprehensive immigration reform would hinge largely on Tuesday's midterm elections.

Now that Republicans, through sweeping gains in those elections, have captured the House
and diminished the Democratic majority in the Senate, the fate of immigration reform is very much in doubt, FOXNews.com reported Saturday.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), who is expected to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said immigration reform will be pushed aside for streamlined enforcement of current laws.

"The enforcement of our immigration laws is critical to both our national security and economic prosperity," he told the San Antonio Express. "We need to know who is entering our country, and why."

He told the newspaper that the committee under his leadership would "enact policies that will better secure our border and discourage illegal immigration, human smuggling and drug trafficking."

A Fox News national exit poll found that of the eight percent of voters polled who identified illegal immigration as their top issue in the 2010 election, 68 percent were Republicans while 27 percent were Democrats.

Another poll, conducted on Election Day by the anti-illegal immigration group FAIR, found that 69 percent of people surveyed consider immigration an important issue and 61 percent believe Obama "has not been aggressive enough in enforcing immigration law."

FAIR is pushing the new Congress to focus on border security.

"FAIR urges the leadership of the next Congress to embrace the agenda of the American people and transform our immigration policy to place their interests first," Dan Stein, president of FAIR, said. "The American people want our immigration laws enforced and overall levels of immigration reduced. They have clearly repudiated efforts to enact amnesty for millions of illegal aliens and increase foreign labor for business interests."

Republicans now have a record number of Latinos joining the next Congress, including Marco Rubio in the Senate and seven others in the House. They could prove a convincing force in the drive to shore up weak immigration laws.

Democrats tried to pounce on Republicans for their support of Arizona's controversial law that clamped down on illegal immigrants and their opposition to birthright citizenship and earned-citizenship proposals.

A week before Tuesday's election, Obama appealed to Hispanics in an interview on Univision Radio to vote for Democrats who would give him the support he needed to pass bills that overhaul the immigration system and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in this country.

"And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're going to punish our enemies and we're going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's going to be harder -- and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on Nov. 2," he said.

Obama later said he should have used the word "opponents" instead of "enemies."

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpps/news/i ... 6_10500577

"Immigration Reform Future In Doubt"

I have no doubt.

It's doomed.